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jamerican J^ttftorical ^eriesf 

GENERAL EDITOR 

CHARLES H. HASKINS 

Professor of History in Harvard University 



american Distorical Series 

Under the Editorship of Charles H. Haskinb, Professor of History in Harvard 

University 

A series of text-books intended, like the American Science 
Series, to be comprehensive, systematic, and authoritative. 

Ready 

Europe Since 1816. 

By Charles D. Hazen, formerly Professor in Smith College. 

Historical Atlas. 

By William R. Shepherd, Professor in Columbia University. 
Atlas of Ancient History. 

By W. II. Shepherd. 

History of England, 

By L. M. Larson, Professor in the University of Illinois. 

History of American Diplomacy. 

By Carl Russell Fish, Professor in the University of Wisconsin. 
In preparaiion 

Medieval and Modem Europe. 

By Charles W. Colby, Professor in McGiU University. 

The Reformation. 

By Preserved Smith. 

The Renaissance. 

By Ferdinand Schevill, Professor in the University of Chicago. 

Europe in the XVH. and XVm, Centuries. 

By Sidney B. Fay, Professor in Smith College. 

History of Greece. 

By Paul Shorey, Professor in the University of Chicago. 

History of Rome. 

By Jesse B. Carter, Director of the American School of Classical 
Studies at Rome. 

History of Germany. 

By Guy Stanton Ford, Professor in the University of Minnesota. 

History of the United States. 

By Frederick J. Turner, Professor in Harvard University. 



AMERICAN DIPLOMACY 



BY 
CARL RUSSELL FISH 

PROFESSOR OF HISTORT IN THE UNIVERSITY 
OF WISCONSIN 



WITH SIXTEEN MAPS 




NEW YORK 

HENRY HOLT AND COMPANY 
1915 



Elts 
,1 



COPTBIOBT, 1915 
BT 

HENRY HOLT AND COMPANY 



/f 



TO MY MOTHER AND SISTER 



PREFACE 

This book is intended as a comprehensive and balanced, 
though brief, review of the history of American diplomacy. 
It is hoped that it will prove useful both to the student in 
the classroom and to the general reader, and will help to 
diflFuse a knowledge of our diplomacy at a time when it is 
becoming increasingly important that public opinion should 
be internationally minded. While it is for the most part 
based upon an independent study of the sources, it is not 
presented as a contribution to knowledge but rather as a 
condensation of ascertained conclusions. The footnotes, 
therefore, contain few specific references to support the text, 
but rather suggest to the reader material for further study; 
either the more important sources, which in the case of dip- 
lomatic history are exceptionally readable, or those accounts 
and monographs which are most useful. 



CONTENTS 



Chapter 








Page 


I. 


Phases and Problems op American Diplomacy . . 1 


II. 


Pre-Revolutionary Boundaries 




. 10 


III. 


Recognition 






21 


IV. 


Spain and Holland .... 






. 31 


V. 


Peace 






40 


VI. 


Religion and Commerce . 






51 


VII. 


The West 






. 63 


VIII. 


Old Problems in New Hands 






. 79 


IX. 


The Establishment op Neutrauty . 






. 94 


X. 


The Jay Treaty . . . 






. 108 


XI. 


War and Peace with France 






. 126 


XII. 


The Louislana Purchase . 




. 140 


XIII. 


The Embargo ..... 




. 152 


XIV. 


War with England .... 




163 


XV. 


Peace ...... 






176 


XVI. 


Commerce and Boundaries 






188 


XVII. 


The Monroe Doctrine 






203 


XVIII. 


Reciprocity, Claims, Boundaries, and 
Trade 


the 


Slavi 


220 


XIX. 


Expansion ..... 






243 


XX. 


Annexation ..... 






260 


XXI. 


Diplomacy and Politics 






280 


XXII. 


The Civil War .... 






304 


XXIII. 


The Civil War and the Monroe Doctrine 






324 


XXIV. 


The Aftermath op the Civil War 






336 


XXV. 


Routine, 1861 to 1877 .... 






349 


XXVI. 


Baiting the Lion, 1877-1897 






370 


XXVII. 


Blaine, Olney and the Monroe Doctrine 




384 


XXVIII. 


Growth op American Inpluence in the Pacific . 




396 




ix 









X 


CONTENTS 








Chapter 


Page 


XXIX. 


The Spanish Wab 408 


XXX. 


Impebiausm and Great Britain 






423 


XXXI. 


Spanish America .... 






439 


XXXII. 


The Pacific 






454 


XXXIII. 


Routine and Arbitration 






464 


XXXIV. 


Mexico 






480 


XXXV. 


The Great War .... 






491 


XXXVI. 


Success and its Causes 






497 



MAPS 

IN COLOR 

Page 
Establishment of Diplomatic Posts by the United States, 1776-1914 

Inside front cover 

West Indies, 1776 to 1898 20 

United States, 1783 to 1790 70 

Changes on Southeast, 1760 to final establishment of United States 

ownership ......... 218 

Possessions and Dependencies of the United States and other great 

Powers in the Pacific ........ tGO 

Development of United States Consular Service, 1876-1891 Inside back 



IN TEXT 



Boundary Discussions, 1763 to 1783 

Northeastern Boundary Controversies 

Northwesternmost Head of Connecticut River 

Rouse's Point Controversy 

Oregon Boundary Controversies 

Texan Boundary . 

Central America, 1850 to 1860 

Alaska Boundary Controversy 

West Indies, 1898 to 1915 

Territorial Expansion of the United States 



47 
229 
231 
232 
268 
272 
294 
433 
445 
488 



AMERICAN DIPLOMACY 



CHAPTER I 

PHASES AND PROBLEMS OF AMERICAN 
DIPLOMACY 

Before the Spanish war most Americans regarded diplo- 
macy as a foreign luxury. Some thought that we should 
import a little of it; others regarded it as a 
deleterious appendage of effete civilizations erican dipio- 
which we, in our young strength, had forever 178^/' ^^^^ *** 
cast aside. Not that this had always been our 
attitude. During the Revolution and the Confederation 
diplomacy was recognized by the intelligent to be as essential 
to the establishment of our national existence as arms, dip- 
lomats were as carefully chosen as generals; the news of the 
negotiations of Franklin, Adams, and Jay was as anxiously 
awaited as that from the army, and their successes brought 
almost as great a reward of popular acclaim as did those of 
commanders in the field. 

By 1789 the joint efforts of our soldiers, diplomats, and 

constitution-builders had assured our national existence, 

but the broader question as to whether we 

1 1 . 1 i> 1 , , • 1 Development 

could gam real freedom to pursue our national of the Mon- 

development in our own way remained. Euro- 1789^0 'law' 

pean statesmen regarded us but as a weight 

to be used in fixing or unfixing the balance of power. The 

strong wind of the French Revolution swept across the 

Atlantic and divided our own citizens. Foreign affairs 

absorbed attention that was needed for domestic problems, 

the fate of administrations came to hang upon their foreign 

1 



2 AMERICAN DIPLOMACY 

policy. Dissertations on diplomatic problems created polit- 
ical reputations. Of the five presidents who succeeded 
Washington all had had diplomatic experience and four 
had served as secretaries of state. Practically devoid of a 
I; permanent army or na\'y, we relied for defence upon our 
diplomats and the ocean. The Treaty of Ghent in 1814, 
followed by the peace of Europe in 1815, gave us real free- 
dom, and our struggle left as its by-products an intelligent 
public opinion, and a staff so well trained that the period 
from 1815 to 1829 may in many ways be regarded as the 
golden age of American diplomacy. As Marshall was during 
those years codifying the constitutional practices of the 
past in form to serve as a guide for a considerable future, so 
John Quincy Adams was codifying our diplomatic opinions. 
By 1829 we had not only shaken ourselves loose from the 
entanglements of European international politics, but we 
<j I had formulated rules of conduct designed to make that 
separation permanent. 

Our isolation achieved, diplomacy ceased to attract our 
ablest men or to interest the public. Of seventeen presidents 

between 1829 and the Spanish war, two only. 
Subordination TT-r> i-r»i ii ^ • ^' \ 

of diplomacy Van l5uren and Uuchanan, had served m diplo- 

i829*t'o m4 rusi^xc posts. Between 1829 and 1844 a few 
episodes gained a momentary attention; but 
not many persons took the trouble to connect them with 
one another and with the past, or to free their vision from 
the blurring mist of internal politics. Between 1844 and 
Expansion, 1860 a consciousness of our growing strength 

1844 to I860 jj^j^j "manifest destiny" began to arouse a 
new interest in diplomacy not as a protective art but as a 
weapon of acquisition. Fearless, often shameless, and with 
little deference for the feelings or conventions of others, 
our diplomats helped to extend the boundaries of the re- 
public; but they were unable to win for their labors much 
applause from a people absorbed in its home concerns and 
the coming storm of civil war. 



PHASES AND PROBLEMS 3 

By the war the work of diplomacy was once more rendered 
vital. If our diplomatic policy had failed then, the country 
would inevitably have been divided, and the ^ 
system of equipoise which causes all Europe construction, 
to vibrate to the slightest international hap- 
pening, that balance of power to which we had by such 
earnest effort avoided becoming a party, would have been 
established in America. Again we were successful; but the 
clang of battle for the most part deafened the public ear 
to the diplomatic struggle, while the political, social, and 
economic reconstruction of the next few years gave the 
public time for only an occasional glance at the diplomatic 
reconstruction, which was satisfactorily completed in 1872. 

The period from Reconstruction to the Spanish war marked 

the lowest point in the quality of our diplomacy and in the 

amount of public attention devoted to it. -^ 

^ , . The nadir of 

With no fear of foreign powers and with no diplomacy, 

J /J ... , 4.- 1 • i- A. e 1872 to 1898 

dennite international aspirations, most oi our 

leading men ignored foreign affairs. Some to be sure, used 
them to add ginger to their public speeches, but only a hand- 
ful devoted any gray matter to their management. The 
situation, however, was gradually changing, the world was 
growing closer together; nations were actually becoming 
more intimate than English counties were a century ago; 
isolation was no longer possible, at least to the degree in 
which it had existed when the Monroe Doctrine was an- 
nounced. During the nineties there was a growing apprecia- 
tion that our national life must become less secluded, and 
in 1898 the Spanish war brought us suddenly n t d 

and dramatically upon the world stage. Our States a world 
policies, no longer those of the anxious pigmy ^°'^^^' 
of a hundred years before, but of a great power seeking in- 
fluence and opportunity, became of moment to the world 
and to ourselves. In an atmosphere of growing intelligence, 
statesmen with a broader grasp of international relations than 
had been held for three-quarters of a century emerged to 



4 AMERICAN DIPLOMACY 

undertake the readjustment, with the result that the Unit 
States has become a world power and an international : 
fluence, though without losing its tradition of living mair 
to itself and letting others do the same. Never again in t 
future, however, can we ignore our international relatic 
as we did from 1829 to 1898. 

The popular interest aroused by the questions of poli 
of the last fifteen years has furnished incentive for a wic 
Study of diplo- spread study of our diplomatic activity in t 
^^'^^ past. Monographs, essays, and books 

diplomatic history and international law have been rapic 
multiplying, and it is upon these studies that this book is 
large part based. It is hoped that its brief outline will 
supplemented by the intensive works to which reference 
made, and that it may thus serve to broaden the basis 
public opinion upon which the usefulness and ultimate safe 
of the United States must depend. 

It is, of course, apparent that popular interest alone 1: 
not been the measure of our diplomatic activity. At 
Continuity of time have we lived wholly to ourselves. Wh( 
diplomacy ^y^j. ^^ American citizen or an American pre 

uct crosses a neighbor's border, or whenever foreigners a 
their goods cross ours, there is material for diplomacy. Pre 
lems, some perennial, some transient, have at all times ce 
fronted our administrations, however ill-manned, howcA 
feebly supported. 

When in 1783 we won recognition of our independen( 
we possessed scarcely one undisputed boundary line, ar 
Boundaries even had every contention been decided in o 
and expansion f.^^.^j.^ ^j^^ territory enclosed would not ha 
sufficed for a well-rounded and self-sufiicient national growl 
Our boundaries have only just been adjusted, and wheth 
the limits of our national expansion have been reached mi 
still be regarded as an open question. At no time in our h 
tory have these problems been absent, and at no time ha 
they failed to influence other nations in their attitude towa 



PHASES AND PROBLEMS 5 

us; in some periods they have been the very pivots upon 
which our national policy has turned. 

American citizens have never been content with the re- 
sources of their own land; to protect them, therefore, in the 
pursuit of the cod and mackerel of the north- gj^ra terri- 

east coast, of the seal of Behring sea, of the *°"^ ^^- ^ 

. sources and 

oceanic whale, and of the guano deposits of the international 
islands of the sea, has been an unending task. 
Of greater difficulty, however, has been the effort to free 
the paths of intercourse. For many years the products of 
our lower Middle West were bottled up by Spain's hold on 
the Mississippi, till the nation itself was in peril of disruption 
on that account. Then, too, many of our northern water out- 
lets east of the Rockies run through Canada, while west of 
the mountains the Canadian outlets run through our terri- 
tories; and, further, the most tempting road between our 
Atlantic and Pacific coast lies far south of our own bound- 
aries. From problems such as these we have never been 
free, and with regard to no others have we changed our mind 
so often. Generally favoring liberality, we have done much 
to free the lanes of commerce in which our interest is only 
general, such as the international rivers of South America, 
the Danish straits, the Scheldt, and many other paths. 

More important and more varied have been the problems of 
our trafficking. The direct exchange of our own products for 

those of other countries has in itself occasioned 

1-1 -11 • 11 Commerce 

little controversy with other nations, and nas 

been steady and increasing; but whether these exchanges 
should be carried in our own vessels or in those of other 
countries has always been a matter of concern and difficulty. 
Mainly a question of diplomacy in the beginning, it has 
become more and more one of economic conditions and in- 
ternal policy. In the matter of opening up the colonies of 
other nations to our ships and exports, however, diplomacy 
has found no respite; the situation in the foreign spheres of in- 
fluence in China to-day is as knotty as was that of West 



6 AMERICAN DIPLOMACY 

Indian trade in the early years of the last century. Our 
merchants, moreover, have not always been satisfied with 
handling our own business. They have acted as carriers 
for others, sometimes in open competition, sometimes by 
seeking to make a profit from our neutrality. 

For no other nation has neutrality assumed such protean 
shapes as for the United States. For more than half of our 
national existence we have been either a neutral 
or else a belligerent interested in the neutrality 
of others. After independence had been established the vital 
question was whether we could remain neutral in the struggle 
that divided Europe. From our effort to remain so grew our 
positive policy of isolation, which, designed to guard our weak- 
ness, still governs the use of our strength. Coincident with this 
problem was that of the protection of our rights as a neutral, 
in behalf of which we were in 1812 stirred to war. As soon 
as the general peace in Europe in 1815 assured us that our 
earthen jar had floated safely through the contest of the 
iron pots, we became concerned in the problem of our duty 
as a neutral in the strife of weaker neighbors, and from that 
time to this the question has presented itself in every con- 
ceivable form, — in the struggle of Spain with her colonies, 
in which the latter so much engaged our sympathies; in the 
later struggle between Spain and the Cubans, where desire 
was added to sympathy; in revolutions and petty wars in 
which our only interest as a people was in peace but into 
which many of our citizens entered on one or the other or 
on both sides. The protection of lives and property during 
these conflicts, the securing of damages for the loss of the 
one or the other after peace was reestablished, has been the 
unending task of our diplomats and foreign office. Then in 
the Civil War we were violently confronted with the reverse 
side of the proposition, — with questions as to the duties 
which neutral nations owed to us as belligerents. The ex- 
periences of the United States in handling neutrality have 
been uniquely varied, its record on the whole is honorable, 



PHASES AND PROBLEMS 7 

and the experience of the past has been a growing force to 
guide the future. 

More unique still has been our experience in affording pro- 
tection to our citizens. A nation made up of emigrants, we 

have not always found other countries as willing 

,, . , . 11 • Naturalization 

to give up their claims to allegiance as we are to 

welcome the newcomers. Since we achieved independence 
the whole question of naturalization and change of nationality 
has been completely reviewed, and, largely by our insistence, 
the conclusions of international and municipal law have 
been almost directly reversed. New phases have lately 
arisen, however, from our wish to discriminate in our wel- 
come between the various races; hence, while the problems 
of emigration — that is, the relationship of the individual to 
the country he is leaving — are fairly well settled, those of 
the immigrant with the country to which he desires to shift, 
remain uncertain. 

Besides establishing our national identity and making 
elbow room for the activities of our citizens, we have been 
obliged to assume a social position in the world, international 
Since the rise of the Spanish-American nations association 
our policy of individualism has been modified by a feeling of 
special interest in their welfare. While avoiding entangling 
alliances with them, as with others, we have always desired 
a close association from which the nations of other continents 
should be excluded; and over the states that lie between us 
and the equator we have increasingly exhibited a tendency 
to assume a modified guardianship. Moreover, we have 
never been able to avoid connections with the nations out- 
side the American continents. Deeply concerned in the 
formulation of international law, we have been forced to 
recognize the weight of international opinion, and have con- 
tributed not a little to give it its present form. At first a 
matter of separate treaties and of diplomatic and judicial 
precedents, it has in the last thirty years exhibited a striking 
tendency to codify results by general agreements reached by 



8 AMERICAN DIPLOMACY 

international congresses. From these developments we have 
not stood aloof, and we have shared fully in the still more 
recent establishment of an international judiciary. Whether 
international law as interpreted by the Hague court will ul- 
timately be provided with a police to carry out its decisions, 
and whether we will cooperate in this extension, are ques- 
tions that will inevitably concern us in the future. 

The diplomatic problems of the United States have always 
had more than an intrinsic interest for the rest of the world. 
The method of their handling has been more 
unique than their quality. To those who, 
whether with approval or with apprehension, believe that 
civilization is tending more and more toward democracy, the 
experience of this country, which has been more democratic 
than any other in the control of its diplomacy, has the value 
of an experiment. 

To the casual observer, as to the close student, it is obvious 

that our democracy has not abolished personality. More 

than in any other branch of our activity has 
Pcrsoii&litv 

the personal element counted in determining our 

diplomatic controversies. Great figures like Franklin, John 
Quincy Adams, and Hay stand out by their achievements 
more conspicuously than do any of our legislators and than all 
but a few of our administrators; and the encounters of Madi- 
son and Napoleon, Adams and Canning, Charles Francis 
Adams and Russell, Blaine, Olney, and Lord Salisbury have 
all the fascination of the days of the tournament and the 
duel. 

Personality has perhaps shone all the more conspicuously 
because our democracy has not chosen permanently to equip 
Diplomatic itself with a trained staff. In selecting our 

^**^ champions we have been governed at best by 

opportunism. When great crises have arisen we have usually 
sent great men, who have in most cases outclassed their op- 
ponents; when the stake has been or has seemed to be of 
minor importance, we have allowed the exigencies of internal 



PHASES AND PROBLEMS 9 

politics to dictate the choice. The result has been represent- 
ative perhaps, but representative of the worst as well as of the 
best that was in us. Quite as disturbing a factor as the 
motley composition of our foreign corps has been the unfor- 
tunate circumstance that our foreign minister, the secretary of 
state, is expected, under the President, to be the poUtical head 
of the administration. Insuring, as this fact does, the hand- 
ling of foreign affairs by a man of ability and power, it does 
not always involve special fitness for the task. Although some 
selections have been ideal, others have been seriously bad, — 
seriously, but not impossibly so, for the permanent force of 
the state department has been able to guide the willing but 
untutored secretary and to modify the eccentricities of the 
obdurate. 

More fundamental than differences in the choice of the 
protagonists has been the difference in the location of the 
power that has determined the policies upon Control by the 
which they have acted. Has the broadening p®°p'« 
of the basis upon which the expression of the national will 
rests meant loss or increase of power, fluctuation or steadi- 
ness of purpose? On this point all sorts of opinions have 
been held. It has been said that the people, without ability 
to acquire the information necessary to form intelligent 
opinions on questions so remote from their daily life, would 
be at the mercy of every whiff of opinion which a designing 
or a shifting press might express; that, swept away by sud- 
den passions, they would rush into wars from which the sage 
reticence of experienced men of affairs had previously saved 
them; or, on the other hand, that if those who suffered the 
pains of war could control it, there would come an era of peace 
on earth from which universal good will might ultimately 
flow. At all events, the controlling element in our diplomacy 
has been the people at large; and if our policy has on the 
whole secured us what we wanted, and done so without un- 
necessary friction, it is a justification of our democracy and 
an argument in favor of democracy in general. 



CHAPTER II 

PRE-REVOLUTIONARY BOUNDARIES 

The return of Columbus in 1493 at once brought his dis- 
coveries before the forum of the world's diplomacy, Rome; 
The papal for the first thought of his "Most Catholic" 
^^^^ sovereigns, Ferdinand and Isabella, was to 

secure a title to these new lands from the pope. Alexander 
VI was a Spaniard by birth and feeling, and at the instance 
of the royal ambassadors he promptlj'^ issued two bulls giv- 
ing to Spain "all and singular the aforesaid countries and 
islands thus unknown and hitherto discovered by your en- 
voys and to be discovered hereafter, providing however 
they at no time have been in the actual temporal possession 
of any Christian owner." These bulls were issued almost as 
a matter of course, as the confirmation of a miner's claim 
would be granted by the United States government to-day; 
but they were unsatisfactory to Spain in that they did not 
prohibit discoveries and the establishment of claims by 
others. To meet these wishes a third bull was accordingly 
issued, May 4, 1493, which fixed a meridian one hundred 
leagues westward of "any" of the Azores or Cape Verde 
islands beyond which all other nations were prohibited from 
voyaging for the purposes of fishing and discovery.^ 

The general bearing of these bulls upon American diplo- 
macy seems to have been greatly exaggerated. They did 
not prevent that good Catholic, Henry VII of England, from 
Their general sending out John Cabot to emulate Colum- 
significance ^^^ ^^ ^^()q ^^^ j^jg - ^^^^ Christian " Majesty, 

Francis I of France, from attempting to found a French 
colonial empire thirty years later. The most peremptory 

' E. H. Blair and J. A. Robertson, The Philippine Islands (55 vols., Cleve- 
land, 1903-09), i. 97-129. 

10 



PRE-REVOLUTIONARY BOUNDARIES 11 

challenge to Spain's claim, moreover, was to come from Prot- 
estants, to whom the pope's grant was rather an incitement 
than a restraint. As a matter of fact the bulls were not much 
relied upon by Spanish diplomats in their general negotia- 
tions, although they may have contributed to the feeling 
on their part, remarked in 1565 by one of the Venetian am- 
bassadors, that like Israel of old, the Spaniards were a people 
chosen of God to occupy a promised land.^ 

In determining the relations between the two great oceanic 
powers of that day, Spain and Portugal, however, the third 
bull proved to have a great and lasting influ- Demarcation 
ence. Accepting its principle, the two countries ^^^ ^^ ^^^^ 
agreed in the treaty of Tordesillas in 1494 to make the merid- 
ian fixed by the pope, or rather one somewhat to the west of 
it, the dividing line between their "spheres of influence," each 
respecting the rights of the other to the exclusive enjoyment 
of everything discovered within its sphere, Spain taking 
what lay to the west, Portugal to the east. As the drawing 
of the line was beyond the scientific abilities of the day, its 
exact location was never determined. Nevertheless, to the 
surprise of both nations it soon became evident that, even 
allowing the most easterly position possible for the bound- 
ary, a portion of South America projected beyond it into the 
Portuguese sphere. To this line of demarcation laid down 
by Alexander VI in 1493 and modified by the treaty of Torde- 
sillas in 1494 the existence of the Portuguese language and 
civilization in Brazil to-day is distinctly traceable, and the 
first event in American diplomacy is thus still a factor in 
our daily life.^ 

When Magellan circumnavigated the world and made 
"east" and "west" relative terms, it was at once realized 
that if the demarcation line were to remain useful it must 

1 C. R. Fish, Guide to the Materials for American History in Roman and 
other Italian Archives (Washington, 1911), 239. 

' Henry Harrisse, The Diplomatic History of America, its first Chapter, 
U52-UH, London, 1897. 



12 AMERICAN DIPLOMACY 

girdle the globe. The matter was one of great scientific 

difficulty, and national interests did not leave science to 

work unfettered, but by the treaties of Vic- 
Demarcation . . • , /^^ 1 1 1 
line and the toria in 1524 and Zaragoza in 1529 the bound- 

ppmes ^^y ^^^ reduced to terms. In point of fact the 

line was incorrectly drawn, but, as is often the case when 
an accident occurs in times of flux and uncertainty, the error 
has become embedded in history. The Philippines, properly 
Portuguese, became Spanish, and, being Spanish, ultimately 
became American. This second permanent result of Pope 
Alexander's demarcation line can, of course, hardly be at- 
tributed to its influence alone; for Spain by discovery and 
occupation, and by her actual power, helped produce the 
error in location. In spite of inaccuracies, however, the 
existence of the principle of a dividing line, aided in the 
early and peaceful settlement of the question.^ 

In America the effect of the treaty of Tordesillas was to 
leave Spain a free hand west of Brazil. By voyages of dis- 
Spanish em- covery, followed up by conquests and settle- 
P"^ ments, she speedily established a firm hold 

on all the territory as far north as Mexico and Florida, and 
presently came to regard the entire continent and adjacent 
seas as hers by all rights divine and human. In 1555 Charles 
V on relinquishing his authority to his son Philip II drew 
up a set of instructions to guide him in his government, in 
which, among the problems relating to the various portions 
of his vast territories, he discussed the situation in the Indies. 
In 1558 he issued another instruction, dealing for the first 
time with the subject of the defence of the Indies.^ 

We may, therefore, believe that during this interval the 
Spanish government first became seriously alarmed for the 
safety of its American possessions. Although the attacks 

» Blair and Robertson. Philippine Islands, i. 159-164, 222-239; Justin 
Winsor, Narrative and Critical History of America (8 vols., Boston, 1884-89), 
ii. 441. 

»Fish, Guide, 113. 



PRE-REVOLUTIONARY BOUNDARIES 13 

upon them which excited the apprehension of the dying states- 
man were not at that time such as to test the strength of 
his son's empire, yet the enormous extent of Rise of the 
Spanish dominions rendered defence difficult, p*''**®^ 
and its riches attracted the hardy adventurer. The assail- 
ants, moreover, — Mohammedans from Barbary, French 
Huguenots, and, a little later, Dutch and English Protest- 
ants, — were in a position to give to their plundering expedi- 
tions the sanction of religion. But although they rendered 
property unsafe, they were not powerful enough to cope 
with the organized forces of Spain, their only serious attempt 
upon the integrity of the empire being thwarted in the awe- 
inspiring massacre of the French Huguenots on the river 
St. John in 1563. 

With the defeat of the Spanish Armada by England in 
1588 the situation changed. Fear of Spain was almost for- 
gotten, and information spread as to the pos- 
sibilities of the vast areas to the north of French,' and 
Spanish settlement. To these regions Eng- ^"^^g ^®*^®" 
land, France, and Holland set up rival claims, 
based on the discoveries of the Cabots, Verrazzano and 
Cartier, and Hendrik Hudson respectively ; and each country 
began permanent settlements. By 1625 the English were es- 
tablished in Virginia and New England, the French in Canada 
and Acadia, or Nova Scotia, and the Dutch on the Hudson ; 
but there was as yet no mutual recognition of each other's 
rights, and no recognition of any alien rights by Spain. 

The first treaty after Tordesillas which referred to 

America was that of St. Germain in 1632, according to the 

terms of which England restored to France ^ , ^. , 
^ . Intemational 

the post of Quebec and other American forts recognition of 
taken in the preceding war, and which may 
therefore be taken as a recognition by each country that the 
other had American possessions.^ By royal patent of 1645 

1 Thomas Rymer, Foedera, etc. (3d ed., 10 vols., The Hague, 1739-45), 
viii. pt. iii. 228-229. 



14 AMERICAN DIPLOMACY 

Spain tacitly acknowledged the presence of the English in 
America by permitting them to import into Spain certain 
products peculiar to America;^ in the famous treaty of 
Munster, in 1648, she recognized the American possessions 
of the Dutch; ^ and by the treaty of Madrid in 1670 she form- 
ally acknowledged the existence of the English colonies.^ By 
1670, therefore, the colonial empires of these four rival 
countries had acquired international standing, but no defi- 
nite boundary line in North America had international 
recognition. 

Of these rivals the Dutch were the first to disappear. Al- 
ready by the treaty of Breda in 1667 Holland had ceded to 

, England not only her own settlements about 
Elimination of ° " p i r. i 

Dutch from the Hudson but also those oi the Swedes on 

o menca ^j^^ Delaware which she had seized in 1655.^ 

Recaptured by the Dutch a few years later, these were 

finally ceded by the treaty of Westminster, in 1674, to remain 

united forever with their English neighbors.^ Almost more 

important was the fusion of Dutch and English interests 

in 1688 on the accession of the stadtholder of Holland to the 

throne of England as William III. United by strict treaties, 

by which the Dutch practically conceded naval supremacy 

to England in return for the profits to be derived from a 

liberal grant of rights to their neutral vessels when England 

was at war,^ the latter rose to world power, while Holland 

sank into a desuetude which was innocuous to all except her 

own citizens. 

' George Chalmers, A Collection of Treaties between Great Britain and 
other Powers (2 vols., London, 1790), ii. 27. 

2 P. J. Blok, Geschiedenis van het N ederlandsche Volk (8 vols., Groningen, 
etc., 1892-1908), iv. 444; translated by O. A. Bierstadt, History of the People 
of the Netherlands (5 vols.. New York, etc., 1898-1912). iv. 148. 

» Cambridge Modem History (1908), v. 105. 

* Comte dc Garden, Histoire generale des traites de paix (15 vols., Paris, 
1848-87), ii. 52. 

' Cambridge Modern History, v. 161. 

* Garden, Traites de pair, ii. 129, iii. 9-10; Charles Jenkinson, Collection 
of . . . Treaties (3 vols., London, 1785), i. 190, 279, 364. 



PRE-REVOLUTIONARY BOUNDARIES 15 

Of the rivals that remained Spain was on the defensive. 
To the effort to fortify and defend that which she had already 
occupied she devoted great energy, and, with Spanish de- 
the assistance of Rome, was in the main sue- ^^^^^^ 
cessful for over a hundred years. It was not so easy to monop- 
olize the commerce of her possessions in the face of the per- 
sistent intrusions of Dutch and English merchants; but by 
concentrating it in certain ports and confining ocean traffic 
to the regular passage of great protected fleets, she went 
far toward accomplishing her purpose. 

France and England confronted the situation in a dif- 
ferent spirit. The conspicuously great powers of the day 
both aimed at world empire, and regarded France and 
America as a field for contest and a prize E^e^^^ 
for the victor. Between 1688 and 1815 they seven times 
engaged in war, and for sixty-three years out of the one 
hundred and twenty-seven they were in open conflict. All 
these wars involved America, and out of them emerged 
American boundaries, American foreign policies, and to a 
considerable extent the spirit of American nationality. 

The first two of these wars grew out of European causes, and 

the third from Spanish- American trade; but in each case the 

French and English colonists of North America ^ , 

• 1 n • All II Colonial wars 

were drawn into the conflict. Although the 

two groups were still separated by hundreds of miles of wil- 
derness, the Indians constituted a medium by which the 
shock of hostility was communicated : the burning of Schenec- 
tady in 1690 by the French and Indians caused a first thrill of 
mutual dependence and helpfulness to run through the north- 
ern group of English colonies. The point of closest contact, 
however, was in the northeast, where ever since 1613 the 
absence of a boundary between the French and English 
spheres of influence had given rise to occasional encounters. 
In particular the depredations of the French privateers, first 
from Port Royal, later from Louisburg, made the possession 
of those ports a practical question to the New England 



16 AMERICAN DIPLOMACY 

merchants, who in each war, and mainly by their own 
efforts, captured the offensive seaport but were foiled in 
their designs on the seat of French power, Quebec. 

Peace treaties, or more properly truce agreements, however, 
were made in Europe and in accordance with European 
European trea- conditions. The first, that of Ryswick in 1697, 
*i^s restored Port Royal to France.^ The second, 

that of Utrecht in 1713, marked a defeat for France as well 
as the first attempt to define by treaty North American 
boundaries.^ France gave up all claim to Newfoundland 
and to the Hudson Bay country, and a commission was ap- 
pointed to draw a boundary for the latter region. Of more 
immediate interest was the cession to England of Acadia or 
Nova Scotia, including Port Royal ; but in this case a bound- 
ary controversy resulted instead of a boundary, for the 
country was granted "with its ancient boundaries," which 
can scarcely be said to have existed. In 1745 the colonists 
captured Louisburg, the French substitute for Port Royal, 
but by the treaty of Aix-la-Chapelle, in 1748, they had to 
return it to France.^ The disadvantages of their European 
connection were beginning to unfold themselves to the 
British settlers. 

With this peace a new condition began to develop, which 
resulted in the first American war fought for American 
causes. The centre of interest was now shifted 
for the Ohio to the Ohio valley. This region the French 
' *^ claimed on three grounds, — because by their 

settlement at New Orleans they held the mouth of the Mis- 
sissippi which drained it, because in 1749 they officially ex- 
plored it and left formal evidences of their claims, and 
because they had at Vincennes the only actual white settle- 
ment in the main valley. For three reasons, too, they were 

» William MacDonald, Select Charters (New York, 1899), 223. 
2 Ibid., 229-232. 

* R. G. Thwaites, "France in America" (American Nation, vol. vifi.), 
122. 



PRE-REVOLUTIONARY BOUNDARIES 17 

willing to fight to maintain their claims, — because of the 
value of the fur trade of the region, because the valley was 
necessary if they were to weld Canada and Louisiana into 
one imperial colony, and because by holding it they would 
restrict the English to the seacoast. They prepared, there- 
fore, to establish a chain of forts from the lakes to the gulf. 
The English colonists, on the other hand, desired the valley 
in order to thwart the plans of the French, and because the 
far-sighted were already anticipating that the westward 
push of American settlement would at no distant period 
turn its rich lands into pioneer farms. Their claims they 
based partly upon the right of a nation occupying a coast 
to possession of the back country, — a view of international 
law early incorporated into the colonial charters, — partly 
upon what would to-day be called a protectorate over the 
Iroquois Indians, whose visionary claims extended over 
nearly all the Northwest, and partly upon their trade rela- 
tions with the valley Indians. 

Not by such arguments but by arms alone could so great 
a controversy be decided. In 1754 the French secured the 
strategic point, the junction at which the An American 
Monongahela and the Allegheny unite to ^" 
form the Ohio. A body of Virginia militia advanced against 
them. The French awaited them in ambush without the 
fort. Warned by an Indian, the Virginians surprised the 
French, and the first battle of the war took place. As Vol- 
taire said: "A torch lighted in the forests of America set 
all Europe in conflagration." How essentially this was an 
American war is illustrated by the fact that, although hos- 
tilities began here in 1754, it was not till 1756 that France 
and England officially broke off diplomatic relations. It is 
not without significance that the command for the first shot 
was given by Major George Washington. 

In William Pitt, the great English war minister, the colo- 
nists found a leader who brought out their comparatively 
great resources. By 1760 Canada was conquered. In this 



18 AMERICAN DIPLOMACY 

emergency France called upon Spain for assistance. These 
two monarchies had since 1702 been united dynastically by 
The " Family the succession of a French prince to the Spanish 
Alliance" throne, and in 1761 they became by treaty 

diplomatically bound together in what is known as the 
Family Alliance.^ In accordance with this agreement either 
country might, if engaged in a defensive war, call for the 
assistance of the other, but in such case it must make good 
any losses which the succoring party should sustain. This 
union, though unable to check the progress of English arms, 
yet brought Spain and her possessions into the peace negotia- 
tions and caused readjustments of fundamental importance., 
The war resulted in four documents which together con- 
stituted the basis of American territorial diplomacy till well 
The cession of into the nineteenth century. First came the 
Canada treaty between England and France, made 

at Paris in 1763.^ For a long time the English government 
hung in uncertainty as to whether it should take as part of 
the spoils of war the rich sugar island of Guadaloupe in the 
West Indies, or Canada. Fortunately for the colonies, how- 
ever, they were at this crisis represented in London by an 
agent of exceptional force and adroitness, Benjamin Frank- 
lin of Pennsylvania, who made it clear that they would be 
greatly dissatisfied if they should again be deprived of their 
conquests. The English government therefore concluded to 
hold Canada, but not without some misgiving that it might 
have been safer to face discontented colonists than to free 
them from the continual menace of French hostility, a point 
of view which gave some consolation to the French states- 
men, who confidently predicted that England could not long 
hold colonies to whose safety she was not necessary. 

' Comte de Flassan, Histoire generale et raisonnee de la diplomatic fran- 
gaise (2d ed., 7 vols., Paris, 1811), vi. 314-320. 

^ From this point all treaties mentioned to which the United States was 
not a party may be found in G. F. de Martens's Recueil de traites des puii- 
sances et etats de iEurope, which begins with 17G1 and is continued by sup- 
plements and new editions to 1913. 



PRE-REVOLUTIONARY BOUNDARIES 19 

In addition to Canada, France ceded all her claims to the 
Ohio valley and all of the province of Louisiana east of the 
Mississippi and north of the little river Iber- 
ville, which ran from the Mississippi to the iana and 
gulf, retaining to the east of the Mississippi fj^f^a^ 
only the He d'Orleans, which contained the 
city now called New Orleans. The eastern limit of this 
French cession was not defined by treaty, but by custom had 
been established at the river Perdido, halfway between the 
French Mobile and the Spanish Pensacola. This boundary 
was for the present, however, obliterated by the second docu- 
ment in the series, the treaty between Spain and England, 
by which the former ceded to England all of Florida, thus 
absorbing also the boundary disputes between that province 
and its northern neighbor, Georgia. 

By a third document France gave to Spain what remained 
of Louisiana, the He d'Orleans and an undefined territory 
west of the Mississippi, to indemnify her for Spanish 
the loss of Florida. 1 Thus the whole mainland Louisiana 
of North America came to be divided between Spain and 
England by the waters of the Mississippi and the Iberville. 
The far-sighted, however, realized that, with the French 
navy in existence, with a French population in Canada and 
Louisiana, and with so wide a difference in the relative 
strength of Spain and France, the latter was not yet elimi- 
nated as a factor in American development. 

The fourth document was an English royal proclamation, 
issued October 7, 1763, dividing the new conquests into ad- 
ministrative provinces.^ Florida was extended The English 
to include the portion of French Louisiana *"londas 
ceded to England, and was divided into east and west prov- 
inces by the Appalachicola river, Pensacola thus falling to 

1 B. A. Hinsaale, The Establishment of the First Southern Boundary of the 
United States, Amer. Hist. Assoc, Report, 1893, pp. 329-366. 

"William MacDonald, Documentary Source Book of American History (New 
York, 1908), 113-116, see also C. E. Carter, "Some Aspects of British Admin- 
istration in West Florida," Mississippi Valley Hist. Review, 1914, i. 364-375. 



20 AMERICAN DIPLOMACY 

the western province. The boundary between East Florida 
and Georgia was fixed as it stands to-day; the northern bound- 
ary of West Florida was set at the thirty-first parallel. In 
1764 this boundary was shifted to a line running from the 
mouth of the Yazoo, or 32' 28". 

To the north the province of Quebec was created, with a 
southern boundary extending from the "South end of lake 
Nipissing." Thence the said line, crossing the 
river St. Lawrence and the lake Champlain in 
45 degrees of north latitude, passed along the "High Lands, 
which divide the rivers which empty themselves into the river 
St. LawTence, from those which fall into the sea, and also along 
the North coast of the Bayes^es Chaleurs." In 1774, by 
the Quebec Act, the province was enlarged by the inclusion of 
the region north of the Ohio river. The area between Quebec 
and Florida, bounded on the east by a line connecting the 
head waters of the rivers flowing into the Atlantic, was left 
unorganized, a preserve for Indians and fur-bearing animals.^ 

With this settlement the ground plan of American diplo- 
macy was laid. Indians, English, French, and Spanish colo- 
Factors and nists, as well as the mother countries with their 
problems rivalry of interests and traditions, were all 

alert to their positions. Nor may one overlook the situation 
in the West Indies, so much more important at that day than 
at this, and so much more closely connected with the con- 
tinent by ties of business and of government. There all the 
rival nations had footholds, and there the fate of European 
and American wars was sometimes determined. Under 
these circumstances were to be settled such great questions 
as the direction of English and Spanish- American commerce, 
the governmental relationshij) of Europe and America, and 
the racial ownership of the Mississippi valley and the region 
of the great lakes. 

' C. E. Carter, Great Britain and the Illinoin Country (Washington, 1910), 
13-26. 



CHAPTER III 

RECOGNITION * 

The early diplomatic successes of the Americans are often 

enhanced by the commentary that the first representatives 

of the new country faced, as untrained novices, _.. , . 

^ ' » Diplomacy and 

Europeans who were masters of their art. international 
This lack of preparation, however, extended 
only to lack of practice in the formal art of diplomatic inter- 
course and to lack of acquaintance with international law. 
Of these apparent defects the first was a distinct advantage, 
for the diplomatic code of the eighteenth century had be- 
come rigid and formal to the point of breaking, and the 
directness of the Americans was like a fresh breeze under 
which it began to totter to a fall. International law, on the 
other hand, was then so far from being the formal and in- 
clusive system which it is to-day that it was not beyond the 
comprehension of amateurs. 

Of men trained in the more essential elements of diplomacy, 
the colonies had a greater proportion than any other country 
of the time. They had been engaged in con- cojoniai ex- 
tinual negotiations, almost independently of perience 
Great Britain, with the Indian tribes, and frequently with 
the French and Spaniards. Every colony had had semi- 
diplomatic disputes with its neighbors, and all had supported 
agents in England whose functions included virtually all the 
elements of a diplomatic mission. Almost continuously from 
1758 to 1774 Benjamin Franklin, as general agent, had 
occupied a post in England essentially equivalent to minister 

^ For a general bibliography of American diplomacy to 1901, see A. B. 
Hart, Foundations of American Foreign Policy (New York, 1905), 241-293; 
also Channing, Hart, and Turner, Guide to the Study of American History 
(Boston, etc., 1912), which has special sections on diplomacy to 1912. 

21 



22 AMERICAN DIPLOMACY 

to that government. Moreover, the whole movement toward 

union between the colonies was diplomatic in its character, 

and constantly involved the most delicate questions of 

management. 

The colonists had therefore had experience with alliances, 

with treaties of peace, of boundary, and of cession, with the 

conduct of joint military expeditions, and with 
Arbitration i i- • , p !•«• • i i • i 

dealmg with men ol dmermg habits and customs. 

They were thoroughly at home with the great American ques- 
tions of boundary, fisheries, Indians, and foreign trade. They 
were accustomed to discuss difficult problems with able men, 
and to recognize the necessity of compromise. In one re- 
spect their peculiar experience as colonists prepared them 
even to take the lead in a new departure in international 
law, — the science of international arbitration. Accustomed 
as they were to see intercolonial disputes ultimately settled by 
judicial process in England, they thought of arbitration as a 
natural expedient. Further, having no trained diplomatic 
staff, they sent over their ablest men of affairs, who usually 
overmatched in ability the men with whom they had to deal. 
This diplomatic readiness was indeed an essential resource, 
for without foreign aid the cause of the colonists would have 
Necessity for been well-nigh hopeless. In the final event 
foreign aid ^^le French army was a decisive factor at York- 

town; but the French army was less significant than the 
French navy, which rendered the situation at Yorktown pos- 
sible.^ Still more important, however, was the fact that the 
colonies were not self-sufficing industrially, and so could not 
have withstood the first shock of war without the supplies 
of arms and other manufactured goods which from the be- 
ginning of the conflict found their way into the country 
through the lax neutrality of Holland, Spain, and France.'^ 

> A. T. Mahan, The Influence of Sea Power upon History, 1660-17 83 (Bos- 
ton, 1890), 382-400. 

* J. F. Jamoson, "Saint Eustatius in the American Revolution," Amer. 
Hist. Review. 1903, viii. 683-708. 



RECOGNITION 23 

From the meeting of the Continental Congress, Septem- 
ber 5, 1774, until the Declaration of Independence, July 4, 
1776, the position of the colonists was extremely Groping for 
delicate. Professing loyalty to George III, ^^ 
they realized more and more the necessity of foreign assist- 
ance, for which, however, it would have been treason to 
apply. Groping for support, Congress on October 21, 1774, 
sent an address to the other continental British colonies, 
on June 3, 1775, it addressed the people of Ireland, and on 
June 16 it appointed a committee to secure the friendship of 
the Indian nations. On November 29, 1775, though veiling 
its design in ambiguity of language, it took a more decisive 
step by appointing a committee of five to correspond with 
friends of the colonies in Great Britain, Ireland, "and other 
parts of the world"; and finally, in the spring of 1776 it sent 
Silas Deane as agent to France, his mission, however, dis- 
guised under a pretence of private business.^ 

Before following Deane in his delicate task it is de- 
sirable to have some understanding of the general conditions 
under which diplomatic intercourse was con- Diplomatic or- 
ducted during the Revolution. In general the ganization 
development of diplomatic organization resembled that 
of other departments. The committee of correspondence 
lasted till April, 1777. It was succeeded by a committee on 
foreign affairs, which gave way in October, 1781 to a secre- 
tary of foreign affairs, Robert Livingston. Under all these 
successive regimes, however, the main questions were de- 
bated in Congress itself, which received foreign ministers, 
and whose president sometimes acted as the national repre- 
sentative before the world. Communication Communica- 
between the directing body and its agents *'°° 
abroad was slow and uncertain. Even in summer two 
months was considered good time between Philadelphia and 

^ The Revolutionary Diplomatic Correspondence of the United States, ed. 
Francis Wharton, 6 vols., Washington, 1889; also Secret Journals of Congress, 
1775-1788, 4 vols., Boston, 1821. 



24 AMERICAN DIPLOMACY 

Paris, and in winter there were few opportunities to send 
letters; moreover, if they escaped the constant peril of cap- 
ture by the English, they were liable to be read by the 
foreign postal authorities. Months often passed without 
the successful exchange of a letter, and some of the most 
important papers fell into the hands of the enemy. Under 
such circumstances the American representatives abroad 
were to a remarkable degree thrown upon their own respon- 
sibility, and might well feel that the fate of a nation de- 
pended upon their wisdom.^ 

More important than such facts was the attitude in which 
Deane would find Europe waiting. Primarily that at- 
European in- titude was one of intense interest. From the 
terest gj.^^. moment that the Revolution took form 

the chancelleries of Europe watched with minute attention. 
The press of Amsterdam teemed with translations of Amer- 
ican pamphlets and original discussions of the American 
situation. From 1774 half the bulk of the Paris and London 
correspondence of every court of Europe consisted of Amer- 
ican news; the ministry of Naples knew in detail of every 
happening in Philadelphia; at Rome Mgr, Lazzari began a 
diary of the American Revolution. Never since then, unless 
possibly in 1900, has this country absorbed so much of the 
attention of continental Europe.^ 

The vogue of America rested largely on the belief that in 
that far-off non-contagious land the vision of Rousseau was 
Sentimental being materialized. The American leaders, 
sympathy gj^^^j^ g^g Patrick Henry and Samuel Adams, 

were picturesque and appealing in their sentiments and elo- 
quence; in one section of French society liberalism was 
fashionable; if one may judge from the conduct of the no- 
bility early in the French Revolution it was more than fash- 
ionable. Even to those to whom it did not appeal, the liberal 
experiment was compelling in its possibilities. Sympathy 

' See page 23, note 1. 

2 Fish, Guide, 74, 15. 118, 233-235, 240-241, 246, 250. 



RECOGNITION 25 

hung in the balance, but the audience was on tiptoe follow- 
ing the action.^ 

If America seemed less picturesque to the men of affairs, 
it seemed also less remote. For a hundred years every war 
had tended to become a general war. Since Hatred of 
1763 England had been regarded as the bully England 
of Europe, and the strength of England was believed to lie 
in her commerce and her colonies. The possible disintegra- 
tion of the British empire was a subject that nearly touched 
that holy of holies of the European statesman, the balance 
of power. To France the situation came not entirely as a 
surprise. Choiseul had predicted it in 1763, France had 
maintained secret agents in the colonies from that time, and 
the king himself had attended to their reports. Toward 
France, therefore, the eyes of the nations were directed as 
closely as toward London and America. 

In France Louis XVI, "the Good," had succeeded to the 
throne in 1774. Neither he nor the prime minister, Maurepas, 
was the driving force; the energy of the govern- Vergennes and 
ment lay with Turgot, the minister of finance, '^"'■6°* 
and Vergennes, the minister of foreign affairs. Both intent 
upon revenge on England, Turgot wished for a longer period 
of recuperation, whereas Vergennes was eager to take advan- 
tage of this unique opportunity. In two papers entitled 
"Reflexions" and "Considerations," the latter urged his 
views. The colonists, he said, must be supported. If they 
were conquered, England would turn her armies in America 
upon the French and Spanish West Indies. It was more 
likely, however, that the war would cause the overthrow of 
the existing British ministry and the recall of William Pitt, 
now earl of Chatham. That sinister genius, the idol of the 
colonies, would probably effect a reconciliation, and, with 

^ For a running account, see J. B. Perkins, France in the American Revolu- 
tion, Boston, etc., 1911; for the documents, Henri Doniol, Histoire de la 
participation de la France d V etablissement des Etats Unis d'Amerique, 5 vols., 
Paris, 1886-92. 



26 AMERICAN DIPLOMACY 

the combined forces of England and America, "une epfee 
nue dans les mains d'un furieux," would devastate the 
world. ^ 

France, however, could not well act openly without Spain, 
Their fleets together might hope to meet that of England, 
Spain delays but that of France alone could not. Spain, 
French action under Charles III and his minister Florida 
Blanca, was somewhat more energetic than usual. She was 
still united with France in the Family Alliance, and she de- 
sired to regain Florida and Gibraltar. On the other hand, 
it seemed rash for the greatest colonial power to encourage 
revolting colonies; besides, she was not fully readj^ for war, 
and again the habitual Spanish procrastination stood in the 
way of prompt action. While goading Spain into activity, 
Vergennes advised Louis XVI to await her decision before 
going to war, but meantime by secret succor to prevent the 
colonies from falling before British arms or promises. 

It was possibly the opening of this middle way, rendering 
unnecessary a definite decision, from which Louis XVI 
Tentative as- shrank almost as nervously as did Charles III, 
sistance ^j^^^^ secured for Vergennes his victory over 

Turgot and the direction of French policy. On May 2, 1776, 
he was authorized to use a million francs for the colonies, 
to which Spain soon added another million. To employ 
these sums for the colonists, without the knowledge, or at 
any rate without the proved knowledge, of England, Ver- 
gennes had recourse to Pierre de Beaumarchais, a playwright 
and litterateur, who escaped being a charlatan by being some- 
thing of a genius, and who had served as a special agent for 
Vergennes in England.^ 

Beaumarchais organized a commercial company, under 
the name of Rodriguez Hortalie and Company, to deal in 
American products. Through Dumas, a Dutch friend of 

' Charlemagne Tower, The Marquis de La Fayette (2 vols., Philadelphia, 
1895). i. 74, 92-97, 108-113. 

2 C. J. Stille, Beaumarchais and " The Lost Million," (Philadelphia, 1886). 



RECOGNITION 27 

Franklin, he was put in touch with Arthur Lee, an Ameri- 
can just then in Paris. When, therefore, Deane arrived in 
France he found everything prepared for him. Beaumarchais 
The initiative came from neither side alone, but *°*^ Lafayette 
each putting forth its antennte encountered the other. Nor 
was the preparation confined to that of the government. In 
that military age war anywhere attracted the adventurous. 
Soldiers of fortune looked to America as a field for possible 
glory and emolument, while some men, like the young Mar- 
quis de Lafayette, burned to baptize their swords in the cause 
of liberty. Deane was overwhelmed with offers of assistance, 
as well as with requests for commissions in the American 
army; and he sent home not only a number of officers, good 
and bad, but, what was still more necessary, arms from 
French arsenals, paid for by the French and Spanish millions 
or to be paid for by cargoes of tobacco. Beaumarchais wrote 
to Congress, "Your deputies, gentlemen, will find in me a 
sure friend, an asylum in my house, money in my coffers, 
and every means of prosecuting their operations whether of 
a public or a secret nature." 

Meantime the Declaration of Independence had been issued 
and the new United States could reveal its policy. Its repre- 
sentatives need no longer be inconspicuous; 

,. , . r. , . T^ . Franklin 

accordmgly, m September it sent to Jb ranee its 

most illustrious citizen, Benjamin Franklin. From his arrival 
in 1776 till his departure in 1785, sometimes as one of several 
commissioners, sometimes as sole minister to France, Frank- 
lin was universally thought of as the representative of the 
American cause in Europe. Arriving in Paris at the age of 
seventy, and preceded by his reputation as a statesman, but 
still better known as the author of Poor Richard's Almanac 
and by his discoveries in electricity, he presented to the 
curious gaze of those who thought to see for the first time in 
the flesh one of those Arcadians who were becoming the sup- 
port of conversation, a benignant countenance with gray 
locks "appearing under a martin fur cap." His lack of ac- 



28 AMERICAN DIPLOMACY 

quaintance with French court etiquette he concealed under 
a cloak of agreeable eccentricity, which he knew how to 
render interesting and not too strange, just as he kept his 
costume simple but not too simple. Honesty had so long 
been his policy that it shone from his face, and he captured 
at once, and contrived to deserve, the complete confidence of 
the entire diplomatic corps. Perhaps only those who had 
business with him realized that his disarming ingenuousness 
of appearance was not unaccompanied by a subtlety based 
upon a knowledge of human nature more comprehensive 
than that of Lincoln, though not so profound. All, however, 
came to realize that the intellect under the fur cap was 
unique, and that of all great minds produced by America 
his was the most nearly akin to the Gallic. His pregnant wit 
passed rapidly from mouth to mouth. His satiric skits were 
expressed with an artistic delicacy as pleasing to the Parisian 
as unusual among Americans. Moreover, his artistic sense 
for language seems but to have reflected his mastery of the 
art of living. His tact and sympathetic consideration won 
those who associated intimately with him, while he did not 
disdain to employ a nicely calculated breadth of acting which 
gained the remote spectators of the gallery.^ 

Franklin took Paris by storm. His piquant sayings and 
writings caught the public attention, his shoe buckles be- 
Frankiin cap- came the fashion, his pictures were everywhere 
tures Paris j^j. ^^^e. The best Latin verse since the Augus- 

tan age was forged in his honor: "Eripuit cselo fulmen, 
sceptrumque tyrannis," "He snatched from Heaven the 
thunderbolt, the scepter also from tyrants." Hesitant soci- 
ety swung to the American side, and society was at that 
period the public in France. That Franklin enjoyed himself 
is clear, and that he liked the French, who liked him, was 
only natural. It is true that he became very close to those 

' E. E. Hale and E. E. Hale, Jr., Franklin in France, 2 vols., Boston, 
1887-88; and, more particularly, Franklin's Works (cd. John Bigeiow, 10 
vols., New York, 1887-88), vols, vi.-ix. 



RECOGNITION 29 

in authority, but that the glamor bhnded in any way his 
clear view of American interests may well be doubted. In 
December, 1776, it was said of him, "That popular man be- 
came more powerful than power itself;" and Jefferson wrote 
later, "He possessed the confidence of that government in 
the highest degree, insomuch that it may truly be said that 
they were more under his influence than he under theirs." 

Franklin's success rendered the triumph of Vergennes's 
policy comparatively easy. American merchant ships, priva- 
teers, and war vessels found harborage in Friendship and 
French ports; and finally, when the news of the ^li^^^e 
surrender of Burgoyne reached France, early in 1778, the king 
consented to act without waiting upon Spain. On February 6 
of that year two treaties were signed between France and 
the United States, — one of amity and commerce, and, in 
case England should resent that, one of alliance. The 
treaty of amity was framed upon principles of free mutual 
intercourse which were somewhat in advance of the time, 
and incorporated certain rules of international law, as that 
free ships make free goods, long laid down by the Dutch and 
French writers but denied by the English, The treaty of 
alliance guaranteed, on the part of France, the independence 
of the United States; on the part of the latter the existing 
possessions of France in America. To the United States 
it gave a free hand in the conquest of British continental 
possessions and of the Bermudas ; to France it granted similar 
rights in the West Indies. "Neither of the two parties," it 
ran, "shall conclude either truce or peace with Great Britain 
without the formal consent of the other first obtained; and 
they mutually engage not to lay down their arms until the 
independence of the United States shall have been formally 
or tacitly assured by the treaty or treaties that shall ter- 
minate the war." ^ 

1 For these and all subsequent treaties to which the United States was a 
party, see Treaties, Conventions, etc., ed., W. M. Malloy and Charles Gar- 
field, 2 vols, to 1909, and supplement to 1913 (Senate Doc, 61 Con. 2 sess.. 
No. 357). 



30 AMERICAN DIPLOMACY 

England, on hearing of the recognition of American inde- 
pendence by France, did not accept the view of Louis XVI, 
France enters who wrote to George III that he was assured 
the war ^]^q^ ^^^ latter would regard it as one more 

manifestation of his friendly disposition; and in April war 
between France and England began. Thanks largely to the 
tact of Franklin, the alliance worked smoothly. The French 
government loaned money and guaranteed other loans; it 
sent ships and troops to America. As the chief American 
authority in Europe, Franklin was financial and purchasing 
agent for the states; he directed the emyjloyment of the 
American na^^^ under Commodore John Paul Jones; and, 
through his friends, the Foxes of Falmouth, he looked after 
the welfare of the American prisoners in England. American 
trade was legitimatized, and the final independence of the 
United States became a reasonable certainty. 



CHAPTER IV 
SPAIN AND HOLLAND 

Two parties arose in Congress. One, which came to be 
known as the Gallican, or French, party, favored the en- 
trusting of American interests in Europe to Diplomatic 
France, advised by Frankhn. The other, skirmishing 
sometimes known as the party of the Lees and Adamses, 
distrusted French sincerity and Franklin's abihty and wished 
to preserve an independent course. The friends of Frankhn, 
who in domestic affairs were also in general the supporters 
of Washington, succeeded in maintaining him at Paris, but 
their rivals obtained the appointment of a swarm of agents 
commissioned to other countries. Silas Deane was recalled 
in 1778, and in 1779 Franklin was appointed sole minister 
to France; but from time to time Ralph Izard was sent to 
Tuscany, Arthur Lee was for a time co-commissioner to 
France and was appointed to undertake missions to Spain 
and Prussia, William Lee was sent to Berlin and Vienna, 
Francis Dana to Russia, Henry Laurens to the Netherlands. 
None of these were received at their posts, but at Paris and 
in their wanderings about Europe they now and again touched 
wires in a manner disturbing to the controlling authorities. It 
was, however, at Paris, and by Franklin and Vergennes, that 
the international status of the alliance had to be determined.^ 

The first essential was the Spanish fleet, and the Spanish 
negotiation at once became the central point of diplomatic 
interest. Charles III was annoyed at the in- spain enters 
dependent action of France; the Spanish gov- *^® ^" 
ernment was irritated at the persistent attempts of Arthur 
Lee to gain admission to the Spanish court, and vacillated 
with the success or the failure of American arms. Spain 
^ Wharton, Diplomatic Correspondence, introduction. 
31 



32 AMERICAN DIPLOMACY 

was still unready; she asserted that France was the oflFending 
party and that the Family Alliance did not compel her to 
assist France in an offensive war. Instead she offered media- 
tion, in return for which she was to receive the cession of the 
Floridas and a considerable proportion of the territory be- 
tween the Floridas and the Ohio, a proposal which was vir- 
tually an offer to accept a bribe from England for her inac- 
tivity. The offer was refused, but European opinion still 
believed that she would remain at peace, when rather un- 
expectedly, in 1779, she declared war on Great Britain. 

Thus united, the French and Spanish fleets for some years 
neutralized British naval supremacy. Since Spain, however, 
though allied with France, had not as yet even 
recognized the United States, in the autumn of 
1779 Congress sent John Jay to treat with her. Jay was 
thirty-four years old, a man of decided talent and great 
energy. Although a gentleman in the conventional sense 
and descended from French Huguenots, he was provincial 
in experience and point of view and retained no spark of 
appreciation for French civilization. Given to self-confidence, 
he was alert to American interests up to the point of being 
suspicious of all who opposed his view of them. He was in- 
structed to offer Spain permission to take the Floridas from 
Great Britain and to hold them; but in return he was to 
insist on the right of the Americans to navigate the Missis- 
sippi to the sea, — a right in respect to which he declared in 
1780, "The Americans, almost to a man, believed that God 
Almighty had made that river a higlnvay for the people of 
the upper country to go to the sea by," — and he was to re- 
quest permission to use similarly the rivers flowing into the 
Gulf of Mexico to the eastward. In 1781 under tlie pressure 
of accumulated woes, Congress released him from that part 
of his instructions relating to the Mississippi; but he disre- 
garded the modification.^ 

' John Jay, Correspondence and Public Papers (ed. H. P. Johnston, 4 vols.. 
New York, 1800-9.S), i. 248-4G1, ii. 1-296. 



SPAIN AND HOLLAND 33 

Jay was not officially received in Spain, but he was put 
in touch with Don Diego de Gardoqui, a Spanish merchant 
versed in American affairs, who represented Spanish 
the Spanish government. It soon appeared Policies 
that Spain was as insistent on closing the Mississippi as Jay 
was on opening it. One great boon which she expected to 
obtain from the war was the banishment of all foreign com- 
merce from the Gulf of Mexico. Ever timid as to her Amer- 
ican possessions, she wished to hold all neighbors at arm's 
length. Indeed, she was not satisfied with the narrow fringe 
of coast afforded by the Floridas; but in the project of a 
treaty presented in her behalf to Congress by Luzerne, the 
French minister at Philadelphia, she renewed the suggestion 
contained in her mediating offer to England, that she receive 
a portion of the region between the Floridas and the Ohio.^ 
Money she was willing to offer; vital concession she would 
not make. 

Fully cognizant of Spanish views, and with his suspicions 

excited by an outside view of a negotiation with England 

which took place at Madrid during his stay, „ • u 

^ , . *= . Spanish nego- 

Jay, having obtained nothing but some slight tiation in 
pecuniary aid, returned to Paris, where in 
1782 he renewed negotiations with the Spanish minister at 
that capital. Count d'Aranda. To assist in these negotia- 
tions Vergennes delegated his secretary Rayneval, who 
seemed to Jay to support the Spanish contentions. 

Meantime the question was not left to diplomatic con- 
troversy alone. In 1778 and 1779, the American, George 
Rogers Clark had captured Kaskaskia on the war in the 
Mississippi and Vincennes on the Wabash, * 

within the territory added to Quebec by the act of 1774. 
Between 1779 and 1781 Spain captured the British forts 
in West Florida. At Natchez on the Mississippi between 
the parallels of 31' and 32' 28", in or out of West Florida as 
one might view it, the Spaniards and Americans almost 
^ Secret Journals of Congress, ii. 310, etc. 



34 AMERICAN DIPLOMACY 

came to blows. In the winter of 1781 <a Spanish expedition 
from St. Louis penetrated to the British fort of St. Joseph 
in Michigan and burned it.^ Jay wrote to Livingston, " When 
you consider the ostensible object of this expedition, the 
distance of it, the formalities with which the place, the coun- 
try, and the rivers were taken possession of in the name of 
His Catholic Majesty, I am persuaded it will not be neces- 
sary for me to swell this letter with remarks that would oc- 
cur to a reader of far less penetration than yourself." 

By 1782 Jay was, therefore, thoroughly convinced that 
Spain wished no good to the United States, but rather that 
Jay's conclu- she would curtail it within the narrowest 
^'°°^ limits. He believed also that France was 

co-operating with Spain and was moved by similar desires. 
John Adams writing in November of that year confided to 
his diary : " Mr. Jay likes Frenchmen as little as Mr. Lee and 
Mr. Izard did. He says they are not a moral people; they 
know not what it is; he don't like any Frenchman; the 
Marquis de Lafayette is clever, but he is a Frenchman. 
Our allies don't play fair, he told me." Adams's reference to 
allies is a little ambiguous; but he must have referred to the 
French alone, for by the close of 1782 there was still no 
agreement between Spain and the United States. France 
was the ally of each, but they were not allies of each 
other. 

^Vllile Jay was negotiating with Spain, the centre of interest 

had shifted to the Netherlands. With the only comparatively 

„ „ ^ free press on the continent, that countrv, and 

Holland • i i . i ,.' , 

particularly Amsterdam, was a centre for the 

publication of polemical literature; and as the chief money- 
lender of Europe, the Dutch bourse reflected all shades of all 
the diplomatic changes of the world. The interest of the 
Dutch in America, and of the Americans in the Dutch, how- 
ever, was far from being wholly jilatonic. Until our treaty 

'Justin Winsor, The Westward Movement (Boston, etc., 1897), 116-202; 
Doniol, La participation de la France, iv. 101. 



SPAIN AND HOLLAND 85 

with France, Dutch neutraHty was the chief foreign asset 
of the colonies. 

Dutch smugglers had always been the bane of honest Eng- 
lish officials in the colonies ; the smuggling question had, indeed, 

been one of the causes of irritation that produced „ 
, _, , . T , p • 1 1 St. Eustatius 

the Kevolution. In the event oi independence, 

the Dutch seemed most likely to inherit the American trade. 
When communication between England and America was 
cut off and British war vessels began to patrol the American 
coast, the safest expedient was to drop with the generally 
favoring winds into the maze of West Indian islands to seek 
a market for sale and purchase; and the Dutch merchants 
took care that the Americans should find what they came 
for. European goods could be safely shipped from Holland 
to some Dutch island, and in particular the little island of 
St. Eustatius became from 1776 to 1779 the entrepot of 
American trade. Lying in close juxtaposition to St. Chris- 
topher, which was British, St. Bartholomew, which was 
French, St. Croix, which was Danish, and Spanish Porto 
Rico, and enjoying the privileges of a free port, it was a 
natural depot of exchange. Through St. Eustatius, Amster- 
dam took the place of London as the market for American 
tobacco and indigo; she exported to London instead of re- 
ceiving from her. Through St. Eustatius, also, cloth and 
iron and war material from Europe, and even from England 
herself, reached the colonies. In thirteen months of the years 
1778-79, 3182 vessels sailed from the island, and through 
its ports was carried on most of the American correspondence 
with Europe.^ 

England was naturally exasperated at this situation, which 
was enriching her most important rival in merchant tonnage 
and at the same time rendering her task in America the 
more difficult. Particularly irritating was the fact that the 

^Jameson, "Saint Eustatius," Amer. Hist. Review, 1903, viii. 683-708; 
also Hansard, Parliamentary Debates, xxii. 218-262, May 14, 1781 (discus- 
sion by Burke). 



36 AMERICAN DIPLOMACY 

treaties made in the time of William III when the relative 
position of the two powers was quite different, gave the 
England and Dutch ships special advantages by allowing 
the Dutch ^Y\e principle of free ships, free goods, and by 

confining contraband within narrow bounds. In terms 
Holland and England w^ere practically allies, but the Dutch 
refused to carry out the agreement by lending England 
troops, which the latter had the treaty right to require. The 
Dutch government did indeed send out instructions calling 
for the strict enforcement of neutrality on the part of its 
colonial officers; yet one governor of St. Eustatius ordered a 
salute to an American vessel, and of his successor the Amer- 
ican agent. Van Bibber, wTote in 1776, "We are as well fixed 
with him now as we were wnth the former." During 1777 
the British naval vessels off St. Eustatius were ordered to 
search for contraband all vessels entering and leaving the 
island, and to send those found with it to an admiralty court 
for adjudication. In 1779, a further cause for complaint was 
given by the refuge afforded to John Paul Jones in the Texel 
after his raid in English waters. In 1780, therefore, England, 
after due notice, announced the suspension of the Dutch 
treaties and began to seize and confiscate Dutch vessels 
carrying American goods or any kind of war material. 

Meantime the Netherlands drifted, anxious to secure the 
last dollar from the neutral trade, and unable to determine 

which side to take up when neutrality ceased to 
Dutch parties , ,, , ,^, n i i ' t-< i- i 

be possible. Ihe stadholder was pro-English, 

but was without energy or power. Of the people, a very 

strong party, sedulously encouraged by the skilful diplomacy 

of Vergcnnes, had for many years been coming to favor France; 

and this faction was now supported by an emotional body of 

"patriots" who felt a sentimental sympathy with American 

republicanism. In 1778, during this deadlock, the city of 

Amsterdam, on the responsibility of its burgomaster. Van 

Berkel, had the draft of a treaty with the United States 

drawn up by a M. de Neufville, who secretly at Frankfort 



SPAIN AND HOLLAND 37 

met William Lee, who acted on his own responsibility. This 
draft, utterly without standing in diplomacy, was sent to 
repose in the archives of Amsterdam and the United States; 
but it did not sleep, ^ 

While affairs were in this state, Catharine of Russia sud- 
denly entered the lists. England had at first counted upon 
Russian support, and had sent her ablest dip- Catharine of 
lomat, Sir James Harris, afterwards earl of ^^^^sia 
Malmesbury, to cajole the capricious empress. When, how- 
ever, George III in an autograph note asked for Russian 
mercenaries, Catharine, who posed as a ruler of advanced 
ideas, replied that she was not in that business. Moreover, 
since France was also ably represented at the court, Harris 
was not able to efface the ill effect created by the English 
treatment of the vessels of the northern neutral powers, 
Denmark, Sweden, and Russia, a subject especially aggra- 
vating to Catharine because among her many aspirations 
was that of making Russia a great mercantile power. This 
difficulty, however, arose chiefly after the entrance of France 
and Spain into the war, as ships of these northern countries 
seldom reached America. 

Under these circumstances Catharine resolved upon a 
dramatic stroke which should at once enhance both her power 
and her prestige as a leader of liberal thought, xhe Armed 
On March 10, 1780, she announced to the world Neutrality 
the following principles of international law: that neutral 
vessels may engage in the coast trade of a belligerent country 
so long as the ports are unblockaded; that enemies' goods 
in neutral vessels are free from seizure; that contraband is 
limited to goods directly used in war; and that a blockade 
must be maintained off the port blockaded. To enforce the 
observance of these views by the belligerent powers she pre- 
pared a strong fleet, and united with Denmark and Sweden 
in what is known as the Armed Neutrality.^ 

1 H. W. van Loon, The Fall of the Dutch Republic, London, 1913. 

^ Francis Wharton, Digest of the International Law of the United States (3 



38 AMERICAN DIPLOMACY 

France and Spain joyfully accepted this declaration which 
would open their ports to neutral vessels, and Frederick the 
Great approved. England, though protesting, could observe 
the rules with little hurt so far as the signatory powers were 
concerned; but, should the Dutch come under them, trade 
with the United States would become a pastime for the traf- 
ficker, and the policy of attrition which she had been at- 
tempting since 1779 would be nothing but a dead letter. 
War with Holland without offence to the northern powers 
was the necessity of English diplomacy, and, while the slow 
wheels of Dutch governmental machinery were rolling toward 
incorporation in the alliance, luck threw in England's hands 
an instrument which secured her first diplomatic victory 
since hostilities began. 

In 1779 Henry Laurens had been elected minister to the 

Netherlands. With his papers he naturally carried the draft 

„. , ^ of the treaty which William Lee had made. 

War between "^ 

England and Captured on the ocean, he threw his papers 
overboard, but they were rescued by the 
British, the draft among them. This was sent to Holland, 
November 11, 1780, with a demand for an explanation. The 
Dutch were not able to satisfy the British minister, York, who 
was accordingly withdrawn on December 16. On the 19th, 
Holland acceded to the alliance, but it was too late. St. 
Eustatius received the first news of war from the British ad- 
miral, Rodney, who demanded its surrender; and the Dutch, 
in ceasing to be neutrals, ceased forever to carry American 
trade. 

The task of establishing relations between the United States 
and England's new enemy fell to John Adams. A substantial 

, ^ . ^ lawyer of forty-five, he had been in France for 

John Adams i • <> • , • • • 

a brief period in 1778 as co-commissioner, and 

had now returned as commissioner to secure the peace with 

England which as yet was only a hope. On April 6, 1781, 

vols., Washington, 1886), iii. 262-264; Paul Fauchille, La diplomatie fran- 
Qaise et la ligue des neutres dc 1780, Paris, 1893. 



SPAIN AND HOLLAND 39 

he received a further commission to treat with Holland. Of 
Puritan breeding and ideas, he was American to the back- 
bone. With a fund of solid information and a penetration 
and sound judgment which marked him out among his con- 
temporaries, he was also conceited, obstinate, and disagree- 
able. His disapproval of the frivolities of Philadelphia when 
he attended Congress there foreshadowed his opinion of 
Paris, and indeed of Franklin. Referring to the latter, he 
wrote, "Congress will not be put to any expense for my 
family, for my coaches and retinues of servants." July 13, 
1780, he wrote to Vergennes, "The United States are a great 
and powerful people, whatever European statesmen may 
think." On August 9, 1780, Franklin wrote to the president 
of Congress, " M. de Vergennes, who appears much offended, 
told me yesterday that he would enter into no further dis- 
cussions with Mr. Adams." 

Happy in the thought that an understanding with Holland 
might render the United States "less dependent on France," 
Adams was also happy in the quieter atmos- Treaty with 
phere of the Dutch capital and the substantial Holland 
methods of her statesmen, who on their part appreciated his 
qualities. On October 8, 1782, therefore, an admirable treaty 
of amity and commerce was signed, and an American loan 
was floated on the Dutch market. In his diary he records 
the remark made to him, "Sir, you have struck the greatest 
blow in the American cause, and the most decisive." ^ 

1 John Adams, Works (ed. C. F. Adams, 10 vols., Boston, 1850-56), iii. 
94-304. 



CHAPTER V 
PEACE 

During the spring of 1779 Congress devoted much of its 
time to a consideration of the terms upon which it would 
American de- consent to make peace. It decided that the 
""^ recognition of independence must precede ne- 

gotiation and not form part of the treaty. On the subject 
of boundaries it determined to make the cession of the un- 
organized Indian country between the Floridas, the moun- 
tains, the Ohio, and the Mississippi an ultimatum. To the 
north it wanted the 1763 boundary of Quebec, that is. Lake 
Nipissing to the point where the forty-fifth parallel crosses 
the St. Lawrence, then along that parallel to the highlands, 
and then along the highlands, giving us the country from 
Lake Nipissing westward to the source of the Mississippi; but 
the whole portion of the line west of the St. LawTence it was 
willing to leave subject to negotiation. To the northeast, the 
line was to descend from the highlands along the river St. 
John, but some more western river might be chosen if thereby 
the war could be shortened. Congress expressed its readiness 
to take Nova Scotia and the Bermudas, and made other in- 
teresting suggestions which were, however, not to be insisted 
upon.^ 

In the discussions two points of dispute arose. New Eng- 
land could not conceive of happiness without the Newfound- 
Fisheries and land fisheries. Her representatives demanded 
the Mississippi tj^g j.jgj^^ ^Q g^j^ ^^ ^l^g "Banks," and in addi- 
tion the privilege of landing on unoccupied coasts to dry fish 
and for other purposes. The southern states, on the con- 

^ Secret Journals of Congress, ii. 132-261; Diplomatic Correspondence oj 
the United States, from 1783 to 1789, 3 vols., Washington, 1837. 

40 



PEACE 41 

trary, were unwilling to prolong the war for such ends, but 
demanded on their part that the free navigation of the 
Mississippi be an ultimatum, a grant for which the New 
Englanders were not prepared to fight. When Congress 
voted to include in the ultimatum merely the common right 
of fishing on the "Banks" without the in-shore privileges, 
Samuel Adams was heard to say that one saw more and more 
that the separation of the East and the South was in- 
evitable.^ 

The French minister, Gerard, not unnaturally urged that 
the fixed points in the instructions be as few as possible, and 
the final draft, August 14, 1779, left out both Final instruc- 
fisheries and Mississippi. Two years more of **°°^ 
war, with the disasters in the South, still further broke the 
spirit of Congress, and June 15, 1781, the commissioners 
were informed that, although the desires of Congress re- 
mained the same they were not to be insisted upon. "We 
think it unsafe at this distance," ran the instructions, "to 
tie you up by absolute and peremptory directions upon any 
other subject than the two essential articles [independence 
and the observance of the French treaties]. . . . You are 
therefore at liberty to secure the interest of the United States 
in such manner as circumstances may direct, and as the state 
of the belligerent and disposition of the mediating powers 
[Russia and Austria were offering their mediation] may 
require. For this purpose, you are to make the most candid 
and confidential communications, upon all subjects, to the 
ministers of our generous ally the king of France; to under- 
take nothing in the negotiations for peace or truce, without 
their knowledge and concurrence; and ultimately to govern 
yourself by their advice and opinion." ^ John Adams was in 
1779 appointed to carry out the negotiations, and in 1781 four 
other commissioners were added, — Franklin, Jay, Laurens, 
and Thomas Jefferson. Of these Jefferson did not cross the 

1 Doniol, La participation de la France, iv. 105-107. 
- Secret Journals of Congress, ii. 424-439. 



42 AMERICAN DIPLOMACY 

ocean, and Laurens was in the Tower of London until just 
before the signing of the preliminary articles. 

From the beginning of the war till the end of 1778 Great 
Britain was continually and increasingly anxious to negotiate 

. T, -^ ■ with the colonies on some basis less than that 
Great Bntam « . , 

opens negotia- of mdependence. These attempts were a con- 
stant source of anxiety to France, and were in 
fact given by Louis XVI to Charles III as his excuse for recog- 
nizing our independence without waiting for action by Spain. 
The attempt of 1778 was earnestly undertaken but was un- 
successful, and after that date such negotiations were not 
seriously renewed. The surrender of Cornwallis at York- 
town, October 14, 1781, brought England to the point of 
acknowledging independence. On March 20, 1782, Lord 
North resigned, and was succeeded by the marquis of Rock- 
ingham, whose program was peace. The new ministry, how- 
ever, was divided as to method. Lord Shelburne, secretary 
of state for the colonies, held that the Americans were still 
colonists, that independence should be granted as a valuable 
concession, and that the negotiations should be conducted by 
his department. Charles James Fox, secretary of foreign af- 
fairs, the friend of the colonists and the avowed enemy of Shel- 
burne, wished to recognize independence at once, to make the 
terms so generous as to reconcile America to England and alien- 
ate her from France, and desired to conduct the negotiation 
himself. In this deadlock, in the spring of 1782, Thomas Gren- 
ville appeared in France from the English foreign oflSce being 
known as Mr. Fox's minister, and Richard Oswald from the 
colonial office being known as Lord Shelburne's minister.- 

1 For negotiations in the field, see Washington's Works (ed. W. C. Ford, 
14 vols.. New York, etc., 1889-93), iii. 77, 79, 90, ilH, iHi. For peace ne- 
gotiations with Howe, see ibid., iv. 249, 26.'J, 309; Wharton's Diplomatic 
Correspondence, ii. 98, 103; Franklin's ]Vork\i (ed. Bigelow), vi. 28; Secret 
Journals of Congress. For negotiations of 1778, see Secret Journals, vol. ii. 
13; Franklin's Worh.i, vi. 124-238. 

* Win.sor, America, vii. 89-184; Lord Fitzmaurice, Life of William Earl of 
Shelburne (2d ed., 2 vols., London, 1912), ii. 111-223. 



PEACE 43 

The central figure in the diplomatic situation was the 
Count de Vergennes. The pivot of European affairs from 
1776 to 1783, leader of France in her only sue- The objects of 
cessful war with England during the long Vergennes 
struggle between 1688 and 1815, master of a distinctly noble 
style of correspondence, active, and successful in the choice of 
agents, he has failed to impress history as has Necker, who 
was less able, or Turgot, who was less powerful. Possibly 
his failure in half of his main conception has blurred his im- 
press on our memory: in separating the American colonies 
from England he succeeded, in binding them to France he 
failed. To accomplish the latter purpose he counted on a 
gratitude that was not forthcoming, on a trade that did not 
develop, on a dependent weakness that was avoided.^ 

Certainly his position in 1782 must command our sym- 
pathy. The ally of Spain and of the United States, who were 
not on terms with each other and who had dif- Vergennes's 
ferent and conflicting purposes, he felt also P^'og''^™ 
responsibility for the Netherlands, whom he had incited 
to enter the war. On the side of the United States he was 
bound to conclude no treaty without her consent, to obtain 
independence "formally or tacitly," and also to secure her 
possessions and conquests; moreover, the United States 
would not be content with the territory actually occupied 
nor without further stipulations, such as those concerning 
the Mississippi and the fisheries. On the side of Spain he 
was bound to conclude a simultaneous treaty, and Spain 
would not be satisfied without Gibraltar, which the allies 
had been for years besieging, and the Floridas. His policy 
was to compel England to offer terms. To Oswald he wrote: 
"There are four nations engaged in the war against you, who 
cannot, till they have consulted and know each other's minds, 
be ready to make propositions. Your court being without 
allies and alone, knowing its own mind, can express it im- 
mediately; it is, therefore, more natural to expect the first 
^ For Franklin's opinion of Vergennes, see his Works, viii. 305-307. 



44 AMERICAN DIPLOMACY 

proposition from you." To Franklin he wrote, May 28: 
" You will treat for yourselves and every one of the powers 
at war with England will make its own treaty. All that is 
necessary for our common security is that the treaties go 
hand in hand, and be signed all on the same day." As to 
the necessity of standing together Franklin agreed with him. 
He wrote Congress, "The firm united resolution of France, 
Spain and Holland, joined with ours, not to treat of a par- 
ticular, but a general peace, notwithstanding the separate 
tempting offers to each, will in the end give us command of 
peace." The first commission to Grenville having been to 
France alone, Vergennes refused to treat with him; where- 
upon, June 15, Gren\nlle was invested with additional power 
to treat with any other prince of state that might be con- 
cerned. This seemed sufiicient to Vergennes, and the final 
negotiations appeared about to begin. ^ 

Kaleidoscopically the situation changed. On June 23 
Jay arrived from Spain, and at about the same time Franklin 
Jay's suspi- became to a considerable degree incapacitated 
"""^ by an attack of gout. Jay's suspicions of 

France, already aroused, were rapidly augmented. He in- 
sisted that Grenville's new commission was still unsatisfac- 
tory, that it must acknowledge the independence of the 
United States, but Vergennes argued that this was not neces- 
sary. Early in September the same Rayneval who was de- 
fending the views of Spain in the negotiation between Jay 
and d'Aranda was despatched on a secret mission to Eng- 
land. Actually sent over to test the English views about 
Gibraltar, he refused to discuss the affairs of the United 
States; ^ but Jay not unnaturally suspected that he was sent 
to bargain for a peace on the terms of dividing the West 
between England and Spain. At about the same time Jay 
received from British sources the translation of a memoire 

1 For the opening negotiations, see particularly Franklin's Works, viii. 
1-119. 

» Doniol, La participation de la France, v. 132-133, 255-256, 603-626. 



PEACE 45 

of Barbe Marbois, French secretary of legation at Philadel- 
phia, which, like the Dutch treaty, had been rescued from 
the waves into which it had been thrown from a captured 
ship, and which presented an argument against the American 
claim to share in the Newfoundland fisheries. Jay concluded 
that France was planning to buy a peace from England 
favorable to Spain and at the expense of the United States. 
He believed that his country must depend upon itself alone, 
and that, in the illness and pro-French weakness of Franklin, 
the responsibility rested on him. Accordingly, on Septem- 
ber 11, without consulting Franklin, he sent Vaughan, one 
of the English agents in Paris, on a secret mission to the 
English government. The cooperation between France and 
the United States was no longer complete.^ 

In England, also, the situation had changed. The death 
of the Marquis of Rockingham in June left no Whig leader 
who could manage Fox and Shelburne together, shelbume 
Fox retired, and the control of the ministry treats with Jay 
fell to Shelburne on July 2. Grenville was recalled from 
France and AUeyne Fitzherbert was sent in his place. A 
master of finesse, Shelburne, who had been seeking an oppor- 
tunity to separate England's enemies, welcomed the news 
brought by Vaughan, and accepted the suggestion of Jay. 
Independence was recognized in a new commission to Oswald, 
and instructions were given as to terms which seemed to in- 
sure success. The negotiation was to be secret from France. 
Shelburne told Oswald, September 23, "We have put the 
greatest confidence, I believe, ever placed in man in the 
American commissioners. It is now to be seen how far they 
or America are to be depended upon. ... I hope the public 
will be the gainer, else our heads must answer for it, and de- 
servedly." 

On September 27 Vaughan returned to Paris, and the 
American commissioners had to decide whether to accept the 
offer. To do so involved the breaking of their instructions 
1 Jay, Papers, ii. 366-452. 



46 AMERICAN DIPLOMACY 

from Congress, which authorized them to treat only with 
the full knowledge of the French ministers and to govern 
themselves by their advice. The very form of 
gotiate sepa- these instructions seemed to Jay to confirm his 
rately from suspicions of a malign and pervasive French in- 
fluence in Congress itself, and he hesitated not 
a moment. On October 26 John Adams arrived from his 
successful mission in Holland, and proved to be, as Jay wrote, 
"a very able and agreeable coadjutor." He sided with Jay, 
and together they outvoted Franklin. The negotiations 
therefore began, their progress being kept secret from Ver- 
gennes.^ 

In the conduct of the negotiations the American had the 
advantage over the British representatives both in ability and 
in local knowledge. They might have obtained 
even better terms than they did, had not the 
British government from time to time braced the backbone of 
its commissioners. The boundaries agreed upon were almost 
identical with those described by Congress. On the north- 
east the St. Croix was substituted for the St. John, a change 
that somewhat curtailed the limits of Massachusetts. West 
of the St. Lawrence it was agreed to compromise between the 
1763 and 1774' boundaries of Quebec. The American com- 
missioners offered to accept either the extension of the forty- 
fifth parallel to the Mississippi, or a line through lakes On- 
tario, Erie, Huron, Superior, and the Lake of the Woods, 
to the northwestern point of the latter, and thence due west- 
ward to the Mississippi. Fortunately the British chose the 
latter, a selection which ultimately proved even more ad- 
vantageous to the United States than the line from Lake 
Nipissing would have been. The western boundary was the 
Mississippi, the southern was the northern boundaries of the 
Floridas, that of West Florida being considered as the thirty- 
first parallel. By a secret article, however, it was agreed 
that, should Great Britain retain West Florida, the northern 
1 John Adams, Works, iii. 300-387. 



PEACE 



47 




48 AMERICAN DIPLOMACY 

boundary of that province should run eastward from the 

mouth of the Yazoo, or in other words along the parallel of 

32' 28". 

The question of the fisheries fell to the lot of John Adams, 

who had special instructions on that subject from the legisla- 

. . ture of Massachusetts. Master of the facts, he 

Fisheries, i i • • • • 

debts, and succeeded in mcorporatmg mto the treaty a 

°^ ^ ^ recognition of American rights to fish on the 

"Banks," and sufiicient in-shore privileges to make fishing 
profitable. The navigation of the Mississippi was also ob- 
tained. The American commissioners readily agreed to an 
article that creditors on either side should "meet with no 
lawful impediment to the reco^'e^y of the full value in sterling 
money of all bona fide debts heretofore contracted," a pro- 
vision which had special reference to debts due by Americans 
to British merchants when hostilities began. The most 
troublesome question was that concerning the loyalists, 
whose property had been confiscated and who had been sub- 
jected to various persecutions. Naturally, the British govern- 
ment felt a proper regard for their interests; but, since the 
laws against them had been made by the states. Congress 
could not promise restitution. A compromise was finally 
reached by the agreement that Congress would "earnestly 
recommend" restitution and the repeal of all laws not in 
harmony with "that spirit of conciliation which, on the 
return of the blessings of peace, should universally prevail." 
With a provision for the mutual restoration of property the 
preliminary articles were concluded and signed, November 30, 
1782. 

Triumphant in their negotiations with England, the com- 
missioners had now to face France. Although they had 

, ^ broken their instructions from Congress, they 

Effect of the . , , , i ^ i t^ i 

treaty on had not Violated the letter of the 1^ rench com- 

pact, for they had not signed a definitive 
treaty. In spirit and in effect, however, they had done so. 
When the news of the articles reached London, the British 



PEACE 49 

cabinet was on the point of exchanging Gibraltar for Guada- 
loupe, a transfer ardently desired by Spain, and by France 
in behalf of Spain. ^ From this proposal it immediately 
withdrew and gave orders for an amnesty with the United 
States in order that the British troops there might be em- 
ployed in the West Indies. 

Upon Franklin, who disagreed with his colleagues as to the 
sinister designs of the French, and who believed that by 
cooperation with Vergennes he could have Franklin and 
obtained terms equally good, fell the burden Vergennes 
of reconciliation. When the question of forwarding the 
articles to America came up, the commissioners again acted 
with secrecy, hastening to send the good news although 
Vergennes wished delay. The latter wrote to Franklin in 
terms of surprise and of dignified reproach. The letter of 
Franklin in reply, December 17, was a masterpiece of diplo- 
matic art, even to the adoption of a certain touch of pathos 
in its slightly rambling quality, natural to his age but not 
characteristic of his writing even later. "But," he explained, 
"as this was not from want of respect for the king, whom we 
all love and honor, we hope it will be excused, and that the 
great work, which has hitherto been so happily conducted, 
is so nearly brought to perfection, and is so glorious to his 
reign, will not be ruined by a single indiscretion of ours. And 
certainly the whole edifice sinks to the ground immediately 
if you refuse on that account to give us any further assist- 
ance." He lays down his pen, but taking it up again, adds: 
"The English, I just now learn, flatter themselves they 
have already divided us. I hope this little misunderstanding 
will therefore be kept a secret, and that they will find them- 
selves totally mistaken." ^ 

It was indeed true that if Vergennes stood in the way of 
this generous treaty, his whole work would turn to ashes in 
his hands: England and America would again unite against 

1 Fitzmaurice, Shelburne, ii. 214. 
* Franklin, Works, viii. 228-230. 



50 AMERICAN DIPLOMACY 

France. Accordingly, on December 21 he wrote to his 
representative in Philadelphia, Luzanne, not to complain 
Vergennes's to Congress of the action of the American 
conclusions commissioners, and he arranged a new loan of 
six million francs to the United States. 

Meantime the French and Spanish treaties gradually 
progressed, till on September 3, 1783, definitive treaties of 
The end of the peace were signed between Great Britain and 
^" France, Spain and the United States. The 

latter was identical with the provisional articles, except 
for the secret article, which was left out as no longer neces- 
sary, since the status of the Floridas was determined by 
their cession to Spain. France gained Tobago. The Nether- 
lands, after a long negotiation, made their peace in 1784, 
accepting the loss of their mercantile privileges and of several 
colonies. 

The peace meant that our national existence, announced 

to the world by the Declaration of Independence July 4, 

1776, had been established. Further, the treaty 
What had . • i i i • i j 

been accom- gave US a territory, not mdeed logical and 

^^^^^^ satisfactory, but ample for present needs. 

We had not won our independence and our field for growth 
by the force of arms alone, but by our success in manipulat- 
ing the divisions of Europe to our advantage, a success 
largely due to our diplomats. Elate though they were, their 
task was by no means finished; for the boundaries of our 
territories were nearly all vague or questionable, and we were 
still a weak nation among the strong. Until we could develop 
our own strength it would continue to be necessary to take 
wise advantage of the divisions of Europe in order to insure 
our safety and our winnings. 



CHAPTER VI 

RELIGION AND COMMERCE 

Independent and at peace, the United States faced the 

diplomatic problems of national existence. One of these, 

which still continues to vex some nations, was ^^ „ . ^ 
. 1 1 mi ^^® United 

at once and definitively settled. The connec- States and the 

tion of a portion of their subjects with a non- ^ ^^ 
resident religious authority had always been a matter of 
national concern. Expecting that such would be the policy 
of the new government, and that it would wish to free its 
Catholic citizens from English control, the papal nuncio at 
Paris addressed Franklin, July 28, 1783, with the proposal 
that Congress consent to the establishment in some city 
of the United States of "one of its Catholic subjects" with 
ecclesiastical authority as bishop or apostolic prefect. Frank- 
lin properly informed the nuncio that neither Congress nor 
any state could take action on such a matter, but that a 
dignitary thus appointed by Rome would nevertheless be 
cordially welcomed, a position in which he was upheld by 
Congress. Less wisely he recommended that Roman con- 
trol be exercised through the medium of some French ec- 
clesiastic, who would thus replace the vicar-general at Lon- 
don. This latter plan was heartily embraced by the French 
government, which hoped by French education and connec- 
tion to render the Catholic element a weapon of French in- 
fluence, and possibly had in mind the prestige accruing to 
France from the French protectorate of Catholics in the 
Orient. The Roman Propaganda investigated the question, 
however, and, after testing the sentiment of the American 
Catholics, decided to appoint an American bishop, John 

51 



52 AMERICAN DIPLOMACY 

Carroll, and thus deal with its members without the media 

tion of any foreign nation.^ 

These two wise decisions were paralleled in what was per 

haps the more trying case of the American adherents of th( 

^, , ,. Church of England. They at once assumec 

The Anglican . . '^ . / 

Church in the position that national independence shoulc 

be reflected in a national church organization 
but to secure a continuation of the apostolic succession il 
was necessary to have recourse to the mother country, sinc( 
there were no bishops in America. In order to obtain con 
secration, moreover, a bishop must swear allegiance to th( 
English crown, and the colonial opposition to the appoint 
ment of a bishop before the Revolution caused England tc 
doubt the reception of one now. Samuel Seabury, the firsi 
applicant, was forced to accept his consecration from a smal 
independent branch of the church in Scotland. The attitude 
of Congress, however, and a declaration to the same eflFecl 
by Connecticut soon removed apprehension as to Americar 
opposition; and John Adams while minister in England 
exerted himself unofficially, as Franklin had done in Paris, 
to make matters smooth. The result was the consecration, 
in 1787, and by English bishops, of two additional American 
bishops without the hampering oath.- 

With religion thus freed from foreign governmental con- 
trol and not interfered with by the home government, reli- 
gious questions were practically removed from 
religious prob- diplomacy until, with the beginning of the 
'diplomacy missionary movement, they reappeared in the 

form of demands for the protection of Amer- 
ican religious workers and projjcrty in foreign countries. 

Meanwhile popular interest in diplomacy was chiefly di- 
rected toward commercial affairs. One reason why the 

' C. R. Fish, "Docuraentii relative to the Adjustment of the Roman 
Catholic Organization in the United States to the Conditions of National 
Independence, 1783-1789," Amer. Hist. Review, 1910, xv. 800-829. 

^ Richard Hildreth, History of the United States of America (6 vols.. New 
York, 1880-82), iii. 479-481. 



RELIGION AND COMMERCE 53 

colonies had chafed against dependence on England was 
the fact that their trade had for the most part been cur- 
tailed by the limits of the British empire, and, ^ 

. . . Commercial 

worse still, had been regulated within those necessity for 

limits by an authority in which they did not 
share. One of the chief advantages of independence was to be 
the opening of new channels of trade. International trade, 
however, is as dependent upon legalized relationships as is 
domestic trade upon the preservation of law and order; and 
in the eighteenth century such legal basis must depend, even 
more than in the twentieth, upon special treaty agreements; 
for general international law was at that time less uniform 
and less pervasive than it is to-day, besides including many 
rules and regulations discriminating against foreigners which 
lingered on from the middle ages. 

At the commencement of peace such treaties existed only 
with France and the Netherlands. It did not, however, seem 
diflBcult to extend the series, for every nation 
of Europe was intent on diverting to itself the sire°for°treat- 
golden current of American trade to which so ^^1^°^ '^°°^' 
much of England's prosperity was attributed. 
No sooner was American independence assured than Frank- 
lin was besieged with requests to enter into negotiation. On 
December 24, 1782, he wrote to Livingston, "The Swedish 
ambassador has exchanged full powers with me." In Feb- 
ruary, 1783, the Danish minister was instructed to arrange 
a treaty similar to that between the United States and Hol- 
land. In July Franklin wrote that the electors of Saxony 
and Bavaria, the king of Prussia, and the emperor were 
thinking of treaties, and in September that Russia wanted 
trade. April 15 of the same year he wrote to Livingston 
that he had received offers to serve as consul for America 
from merchants in every port of France and from most of 
those of Europe.^ 

Not all these projects materialized into treaties; but in 
1 Franklin, Works, viii. 172-313. 



54 AMERICAN DIPLOMACY 

1783 Franklin concluded one with Sweden, and in 1785 
Adams, Franklin, and Jefferson made one with Prussia. 

These compacts, like those with France and 
Character of tt n i i- i-i i • i • 

our early Holland, were exceedmg liberal in their pro- 

visions. They granted freedom of religion to 
the citizens of one country who were occupied in the other, 
and abolished the droit d'aubaine, or tax on the estates of 
deceased foreigners. With regard to trade during time of 
war, these treaties aligned the United States with the Dutch, 
or continental, views rather than with those of the English. 
The interests of most European nations were similar to those 
of the United States in opposition to those of Great Britain, 
they were the interests of nations weak at sea against the 
strong. In the end the continental views for the most part 
triumphed, but they can scarcely be regarded as accepted 
international law in the eighteenth century. They expressed 
desires rather than accomplished facts. Among the provi- 
sions bearing on the subject were those by which the belliger- 
ent right of search was strictly limited, contraband was nar- 
rowly interpreted, neutral ships were allowed to carry 
enemies' goods, and in the case of Prussia privateering was 
prohibited between the two powers. The French treaty, 
however, allowed the capture of neutral goods on enemies' 
ships. In 1788 Jefferson, then serving as minister to France, 
concluded an elaborate treaty with that country regulating 
the rights of consuls. 

Meanwhile, not waiting for treaties, adventurous Amer- 
ican merchants were striking out for trade beyond the limits 
Trade in Asia of Europe in the Far East, which had beckoned 
and Africa Columbus, and whose most cherished jjroduct, 

tea, had caused one of the dramatic preludes of the Revolu- 
tion. Previously debarred from this trade by the monopoly 
granted to the East India Company, the colonists were 
nevertheless somewhat familiar with it, and had long used 
Asiatic commodities. Once free, they hastened to make use 
of their opportunities. In 1784 the first American vessel 



RELIGION AND COMMERCE 55 

reached Canton, In 1786 an American commercial agent 
was in residence there, and soon American vessels were fre- 
quenting the northwest coast of America in search of the 
furs and ginseng which the Chinese wished in exchange for 
their tea and silk. Moreover, on the coming of peace, Amer- 
icans had resumed their traffic on the slave coast of Africa, 
where there were no governments with which they must 
come to terms. ^ 

In the Mediterranean, however, no progress was made. 
This was not due to a neglect on the part of the Italian 
powers to cultivate the United States. The Mediterranean 
papal nuncio, while writing of religion in be- ^^^^ 
half of the church, had also mentioned trade in behalf of 
the states of the church; and Naples, Venice, and Malta 
all made similar advances. Nor was it because the United 
States was unfamiliar with trade conditions in that inland 
sea; for as colonists the Puritan New Englanders had con- 
stantly supplied the Mediterranean countries with salted 
cod for fast-day fare, and wheat and rice, and had smuggled 
away ribbons, silks, Leghorn hats, and other commodities. 
The difficulty lay in the fact that here was encountered one 
of the disadvantages of separation from England. The 
English navy no longer protected American ships from the 
Barbary pirates.^ 

The North African states, Morocco, Algiers, Tunis, and 
Tripoli, constituted an anachronism that was a blot upon the 
civilization of Europe. Their official navies The Barbary 
consisted of pirate craft, which swept down s***^^ 
upon peaceful trading- vessels and sold, with ship and goods, 
the sailors and passengers into captivity. So well recognized 
was their activity that there existed an active "Society of the 
Holy Trinity for the Redemption of Captives," whose work 

1 Katharine Coman, The Industrial History of the United States (New 
York, 1910), 135-137; Hildreth, United States, iii. 510. 

2 Eugene Schuyler, American Diplomacy (New York, 1886), 193-208; 
E. Dupuy, Americains et Barharesques, Paris, 1910. 



56 AMERICAN DIPLOMACY 

went on from century to century. At the time of the Revo- 
lution these pirates respected the flags of certain countries, 
as England, France, and Spain, in return for heavy pay- 
ments. That these nations, whose fleets could have cleared 
the sea as Pompey's did in 67 B. C, failed to do so, was for 
reasons similar to those which cause the police of some large 
cities to tolerate "gunmen" and vice. Franklin wrote, 
July 22, 1783, that it was a maxim among English merchants 
that, "if there were no Algiers, it would be worth England's 
while to build one." By preventing the smaller nations from 
competing in trade, the pirates increased the employment of 
the protected merchant marines. 

In July, 1785, an American schooner, Maria, and the ship 
Dauphin were captured, and American trade in the Mediter- 

^ ., , ranean ceased. The United States had hoped 

Failure to open • i i • 

the Mediter- to substitute the French na^^ as protector in 

place of the English, but France would prom- 
ise nothing except assistance in making a treaty. In May, 
1784, Adams, Franklin, and Jefferson were empowered to 
negotiate with them; but negotiation was expensive and the 
agents themselves were not agreed as to method. Adams 
favored the European practice of buying peace, whereas 
Jefferson was opposed to such a policy, and broached the 
impractical scheme of forming a general confederation to 
put the pirates down. In July, 1787, Thomas Barclay, being 
specially delegated by Adams and Jefferson, had the as- 
tonishing good luck to conclude a treaty with Morocco 
without tribute. Success, however, failed to attend the 
negotiations with the other powers, and at the close of the 
Confederation trade in the Mediterranean was still closed to 
American vessels and a number of Americans still remained 
as slaves in Algerian households. 

Spain and Portugal, however, were accessible. To these 
countries had always gone the best of the colonial fish, and 
when fishing was resumed after the war it was again sent 
there for sale. Meal, lumber products, rice, and some other 



RELIGION AND COMMERCE 57 

goods also sought these markets. With independence it was 
hoped that this trade might be made more profitable by 
the securing of return cargoes, which had for 
the most part previously been prohibited by Spain and 
the English navigation acts. Both countries ° ^ 
permitted trade, but American merchants and sea-captains 
found themselves under disadvantages due to the absence of 
the treaty protection which they had enjoyed as English sub- 
jects. Rates and regulations were now arbitrarily changed, 
and religious difficulties kept arising. It was hoped to settle 
these discords by negotiation, and also to induce Spain to 
open up, in some degree, a direct trade with her colonies, 
for much of what Americans sold in Spain was reexported 
to the Spanish settlements. 

In 1784 Jay succeeded Livingston as secretary of foreign 
affairs, and Spain sent over Gardoqui to continue the negotia- 
tions which had been begun in 1779. They 
» 1 . • 1 . 1 Failure of ne- 

lound agreement on commercial matters easy ; gotiations with 

but the old difficulty of the Mississippi per- f^fg^^ ^'^'^ P"""' 
sisted, and Spain's ambitions with regard to 
the West assumed a new phase, so that no treaty was con- 
summated. As none was made with Portugal either, the 
Confederation government thus failed to satisfy the demand 
of the commercial community that trade with these two 
nations be put upon a solid basis. 

However great might be the future development of the 
new channels of trade opened up by independence, the great- 
est present change felt by the people of the 
United States was that concerning their rela- the British 
tions with the British empire. Heretofore they ^' 
had been free of the empire, but debarred from the rest of the 
world; now they had the world before them, but were stran- 
gers within the empire. Unless diplomacy could secure them 
some of their old advantages, the new might not suffice to 
make good their losses. Trade with Great Britain itself 
was still allowed, and afforded a market for tobacco, tar and 



68 AMERICAN DIPLOMACY 

turpentine, and some other products; but our exports to that 
country had never paid for our imports, and did not bid fair 
to do so in the future. The balance had been paid by the 
excess in our favor resulting from the trade with the British 
West India islands.^ 

This trade had been the most important of all branches of 
colonial commerce. Those islands were devoted to raising 
British West staple products, such as sugar, and they relied 
^^'^^^ in large measure on the continental colonies 

for food, including wheat, cheese, and salt pork; for lumber, 
including barrel staves and framed houses ready to set up; 
for horses, and for many of their slaves; and particularly 
they bought for their slaves the poorer qualities of cod and 
mackerel which, indiscriminately with the good, were caught 
by the fisherman but which could not be sold in Europe. 
This trade had not only afforded a market for our farms and 
industries, but had also given employment to our ships, and 
thereby fostered ship-building and all the gamut of subsidiary 
occupations. It had been the corner stone of American 
commerce, and its preservation was a primary object of 
American diplomacy. 

As soon as the preliminary articles of peace were signed 

in November, 1782, work upon a treaty of commerce was 

„, ,, , begun. The Duke of Manchester and David 

Shelburne's '^ 

plans and de- Hartly were commissioned by the English 
government for "opening, promoting, and 
rendering perpetual the mutual intercourse of trade and 
commerce between our kingdom and the dominions of the 
United States." Lord Shelburne was deeply influenced by 
the views of Adam Smith. He was inclined to continue the 
policy which he had adopted in response to Jay's offer, and 
by liberal arrangements with America to prevent the per- 

^ Edward Channing, History of the United States (vols, i.-iii. New York, 
1905-12), iii. 412-424; Phineas Bond, Letters, Anier. Hist. Assoc, Report, 
1896, i. 513-659; Stephen Higginson, Letters, ibid., 711-841; Marquis of 
Buckingliain, Letters to Sir John Temple, Mass. Hist. Soc, Proceedings, 
1866, pp. 69-80. 



RELIGION AND COMMERCE 59 

manent alignment of the United States with France. His 
power, however, was hmited. To some degree, it may be 
said, his ministry was tolerated by Parliament for the sole 
purpose of performing the disagreeable task of sanctioning 
the partition of the empire. On February 24, 1783, he was 
forced to resign, and was succeeded by an incongruous com- 
bination headed jointly by the inveterate contestants, Fox 
and North. Vaughan wrote to Franklin the next day, "But 
the overthrow of parties is nothing to the overthrow of sys- 
tems relative to English commerce, which was intended to 
be placed on a footing that would have been an example to 
all mankind, and probably have restored England to her 
pinnacle again." ^ 

The new government was to a considerable extent influ- 
enced by Lord Sheffield, whose "Observations on the Com- 
merce of the United States," published in change of 
1783, set forth the long-established view of ^"^^^ P°"*=y 
England's policy with regard to trade and navigation. On 
July 2, 1783, a royal proclamation confined the West Indian 
trade to British ships; July 27, the commissioners found "it 
best to drop all commercial articles in our definitive treaty." 
The subject, however, was one which the United States 
could not afford to drop, and John Adams was sent as minis- 
ter to England to renew negotiations. Arriving in February, 
1785, as first representative from America to the British 
crown, himself a leading figure in the struggle for independ- 
ence, he was in a position of some delicacy, but nevertheless 
he found his new post eminently congenial. The ponderous 
seriousness of English public life sufficiently resembled re- 
spectability to win his lively approbation. On examining 
the library of George III., he felt that it contained every 
book which a king should have and no other. His sturdy 
Americanism, however, asserted itself. When the king some- 
what jocularly remarked upon Adams's well known dislike 
of the French, the latter replied, " I must avow to your ma- 
1 Franklin, Works, viii. 261. 



60 AMERICAN DIPLOMACY 

jesty, I have no attachment but to my own country." The 
king responded, "quick as Hghtning," "An honest man will 
never have any other." ^ 

In spite of this auspicious opening Adams's mission failed 
of its main object. In fact, in 1788 an act of Parliament 
Adams's mis- made permanent the policy of the proclama- 
"°^ tion of 1783, and this in spite of the succession 

to the premiership of William Pitt, who in 1783 had shared 
Lord Shelburne's liberal convictions. Not only were Amer- 
ican ships prohibited from engaging in the West Indian trade, 
but the policy of encouraging Canada to supply the islands 
with the goods they needed was adopted, with the result 
that British ships were allowed to carry United States goods 
to the islands only at such times and to such a degree as 
was absolutely necessary. 

One reason for this policy was explained in the following 

words by the Duke of Dorset, with whom Adams was treat- 

„ . . ing: "The apparent determination of the re- 
Great Britam ° . ^ ^ 
distrusts the spective states to regulate their own separate 

on e era ion interests, renders it absolutely necessary, 
towards forming a permanent system of commerce, that my 
court should be informed how far the commissioners can 
be duly authorized to enter into any engagement with Great 
Britain, which it may not be in the power of any one of the 
states to render totally useless and inefficient." This point 
was well taken to the extent that the sole power over com- 
merce given to Congress by the Articles of Confederation 
was that of preventing the states from levying discriminating 
duties against nations with which the country was in treaty 
relations. Moreover, England had practical demonstration 
of the inefficiency of Congress in the fact that, in spite of 
the treaty of peace, various states still put obstacles in the 
way of the collection of British debts and refused to heed 
the recommendation of Congress for a greater leniency 
toward loyalists. This impotence of Congress not only 
• J. Q. and C. F. Adams, John Adams, vol. ii. 



RELIGION AND COMMERCE 61 

caused the British government to doubt the eflScacy of a 
treaty on commercial subjects with the United States, but 
relieved it from any apprehension of effective retaliation. 
Congress could not pass retaliatory laws; and although some 
of the states, as Virginia and Georgia, did so, the English 
statesmen correctly judged that any universal agreement to 
such an end was not within the realm of practical politics.^ 

Still more conclusive to the English mind was the fact 
that Great Britain, without a treaty, was nevertheless enjoy- 
ing the most essential advantages of American _ „ . . 

1 rrii * • r •^• -it-. Great Bntain 

trade. The Americans were lamiliar with Eng- holds Amer- 

lish goods, liked them, and found them on the 
whole the cheapest in the world. The British merchants more 
easily resumed American connections than other nations 
established them ; and particularly they were willing to grant 
the long credits which the Americans desired. London, 
moreover, was actually the most convenient distributing 
centre of the world, and its merchants continued to handle 
many articles, such as German linens, which the Americans 
desired from the continent. In 1789 probably three quarters 
of our imports came from Great Britain, who in turn re- 
ceived perhaps half of our exports. France, although coax- 
ing our trade by liberal concessions to our whale oil, fish, 
grains, and such products in 1787, and seeking earnestly to 
develop in the United States a taste for French brandy, 
secured but a small and not increasing portion of the Amer- 
ican traffic. Naturally, therefore, England saw no neces- 
sity for granting favors, when without them she continued 
to enjoy that market for her factories and employment for 
her vessels of which Vergennes had thought to deprive 
her. 

Thus the government under the Confederation was not 
able to reopen the British West Indies to trade. Although 
the trade of the French islands was open to small Amer- 

^ Secret Journals of Congress, iv. 185-286; W. C. Fisher, American Trade 
Regulations before 1789, Amer. Hist. Assoc., Papers, 1889, iii. 467-493. 



62 AMERICAN DIPLOMACY 

ican vessels trading directly there and back, yet it was sub- 
ject to such disadvantages that it by no means took the 
Failures of the place of what we had lost. In fact this was not 
Confederation entirely a gain after all, for the colonies had to 
some degree engaged in it before the Revolution, albeit ille- 
gally. With the loss of the Mediterranean traflac and the un- 
certainties in Spain and Portugal, the total effect of the Rev- 
olution on commerce could in 1789 hardly be said to have 
been satisfactory, and the failure of negotiations was rightly 
felt to have been due in large measure to the lack of a 
strong national government capable of making itself re- 
spected abroad. 



CHAPTER VII 
THE WEST 

The failure of the negotiations with Great Britain and 
Spain on the question of commerce was not by any means 
due entirely to the intrinsic difficulties of the Conditions on 
subject. Both nations were our neighbors, and *^® frontier 
the problems of territorial propinquity were in both cases 
more complicated and disturbing than those of oceanic traffic. 
The cession to the United States of the region bounded by 
the Appalachian mountains, the Great Lakes, the Missis- 
sippi, and the Floridas was not regarded by European states- 
men as finally determining the future. As it stood, more- 
over, this area did not constitute a satisfactory territorial 
unit; for, as conditions of transportation then were, its com- 
mercial outlets fell to the control, not of the United States, 
but, as to the southern half, to Spain, who held the mouth 
of the Mississippi, and as to the northern half to Great 
Britain, who held the St. Lawrence. Its population was 
during the period of the Confederation about equally divided 
between Indians, who held themselves to be independent, 
and frontiersmen, whose loyalty to the central government of 
the United States was yet to be created and would depend 
upon the ability of that government to solve their problems. 
Thus, as Washington said, the western settlers "stood upon a 
pivot, the touch of a feather would turn them any way." 

At the close of hostilities Great Britain still held important 
posts in the ceded area, at such strategic positions as De- 
troit, Michilimackinac, Niagara, and Oswego. „ „ ,, 
In July, 1783, Washington sent Baron Steuben " debts," and 

** lov&lists " 

to General Haldiman, the governor-general of 
Canada, to accept the surrender of these forts. The latter 
said that he had received no instructions on the point and 

63 



64 AMERICAN DIPLOMACY 

refused to discuss the question. In June, 1784, instructions 
did indeed reach him, but they were to the effect that the 
posts should be held, a position that was later justified by 
the British minister, Hammond, on the ground that the 
United States had failed to live up to the terms of the treaty 
as to the payment of British debts and the treatment of the 
loyalists. The balance of evidence would seem to indicate 
that the refusal to give up the posts preceded any definite 
information as to the disregard by the states of the injunc- 
tions of the treaty and the requests of Congress. If this 
excuse had not been afforded, however, it is possible that 
the British might later have yielded the point; in fact, the 
British foreign office carefully framed its own dispatches on 
this view of the matter. But the first refusal was based on 
other grounds.^ 

One of these was the complaint of the British fur-traders, 
who protested as soon as the terms of the provisional articles 

were announced. Their trade made London 
The fur-trade . „ i <» i i i i 

the most nnportant lur-marketoi the world; the 

carrying out of the treaty, they claimed, would practically 
destroy their occupation; for half their furs came from the 
forests and streams allotted to the Americans, and the best 
trails, portages, and river channels were on the American 
side of the boundary. 

More important than the fur-traders were the Indians, 
who, though in many tribes, comprised only two main groups. 
One of these was the Iroquois, who had so long 
maintained themselves in the fair valleys of 
central New York, exercising by their valor and their shrewd- 
ness in diplomacy a potent influence on the struggles between 
the French, Dutch, English, and Americans. Although the 
real power of the Iroquois confederacy had been broken by 
the expedition of the American army under General Sullivan 
in 1779, they still retained the title to their lands and a great 

* A. C. McLaughlin, "The Western Posts and the British Debts," Amer. 
Hist. Assoc., Report, 1894, pp. 413-444. 



THE WEST 65 

name. During the period of the Confederation they divided 
into two groups, one of which made friends with the Amer- 
icans and retained their homes, while the other and larger 
band preferred their traditional friendship with the British 
and removed to a grant given to them by the British 
government west of the Niagara river. The leader of this 
portion was the famous Joseph Brant, a man of ability 
and distinction who stood high in the councils of the 
English. 1 

The other main group, consisting of the Delaware, Wyan- 
dot, Shawanee, Miami, and other tribes, and comprising 

about five thousand warriors, was known col- ^^ „ ^ 
1-1 11 11 1 1-1 ^^® North- 

lectively, although there was but slight co- western In- 
hesion among the several tribes, as the North- 
western Indians. They occupied, geographically, the region 
which is to-day Ohio and Indiana, and politically held the 
same strategic relation to boundaries and settlements which 
the Iroquois had formerly held. By the British they were 
regarded as still under the influence of the Iroquois, but as a 
matter of fact, being less civilized and more independent, 
they were no longer inclined to accept the leadership of that 
confederation or of Brant. 

When the tribes heard of the treaty of peace their anger 
against the British was intense, because they were not in- 
cluded in its terms. They had for the most The Indian 
part been engaged in the war as allies of the p®"^ 
British, the treaty left them at the mercy of the Americans. 
So violent was their tone that the British feared some such 
general and concerted movement among them as had taken 
place under Pontiac in 1764, when the Indians had been 
similarly deserted by the French. Against such an attack the 
feeble British garrisons along the lakes would be but a frail 
defence; but, should these be withdrawn, the little settle- 
ments of French about the trading centres, and of American 

^ I. J. Cox, "The Indian as a Diplomatic Factor in the History of the 
Old Northwest," Ohio Archwol. and Hist. Quarterly, 1909, xviii. 542-565. 



66 AMERICAN DIPLOMACY 

loyalists who were beginning to occupy what is now Ontario, 
would fall like brush before the fire. To prevent such a 
catastrophe, the British commissioners in Paris had suggested 
that Great Britain retain the forts for three years, or until 
American garrisons arrived; but this proposition had been 
rejected.^ 

Angry as the tribes were with the British, they felt a more 
fundamental hostility to the "Long Knives" or Americans, 
Indians and whose advancing settlements drove wild life 
Amencans before them. They were loath to make peace 

with them particularly because to the Americans a treaty 
with Indians meant acquisition of territory. The Indians 
continued to trade with the British agents, to frequent the 
British forts, to speak of George III, the great chief with the 
red coat, as father; but if they were to be obedient children 
they wished protection from their enemies. The Indians 
were, therefore, a weapon for the British, but one which re- 
quired careful handling. 

The policy of the British government was one of peace 
and pacification, but it could not command the Indians to 
The British accept American terms without the danger of 
Indian pohcy ^ great uprising. Nor could it entirely control 
its own agents so far away on the frontier and necessarily 
invested with large personal responsibility. Many of these 
were American loyalists, as bitter against their former coun- 
trymen as were the Indians. Guns and ammunition were 
sold, indiscreet utterances were made, ardent young Eng- 
lishmen and Canadians occasionally joined the Indian forays; 
and the Americans interpreted British policy as a careful 
nursing of the tribes to be used as a lash to castigate the 
United States frontier when occasion should arise. ^ 

The most important European settlement in the drainage 
basin of the St. Lawrence, except for the French Canadian 

' Papers drawn from the Canadian archives, the Simcoe papers, and the 
British Public Record OflSce, by Miss Orpha Leavitt, for use in a Wisconsin 
doctor's thesis as yet unpublished. 



THE WEST 67 

farmers along the main river, was that of the "Green 
Mountain Boys" in the valley of Lake Champlain. Their 
position was a peculiar one. Although they were 
organized as a separate state, their lands were 
claimed by both New Hampshire and New York and their 
government was not recognized by Congress. During the 
Revolution they had fought on the American side, but they 
had negotiated with Great Britain independently. With 
peace, their great desire was incorporation into the American 
Union, within whose boundaries they were living; and yet 
they realized that Great Britain held their welfare in her 
hands, for the only outlet for their lumber and grain was 
down the Richelieu, or Sorrel, river to Montreal.^ 
■"^To obtain the privilege of this route they determined to 
negotiate on their own account, and in 1786 sent three com- 
missioners to frame a treaty of commerce with , „ 

Influence of 
Lord Dorchester, then governor-general of the St. Law- 
Canada. In 1787 and 1788, the British govern- 
ment granted them certain privileges by proclamation and 
ordinance; but the Vermonters, wishing a formal treaty, 
continued negotiations through 1790. On April 17, 1790, 
Cattrell, in behalf of the Canadian government, wrote to 
W. W. Grenville of the British foreign office: "It belongs 
not to the Committee to decide how far any article in the late 
Treaty of Peace, by which the Independence of the United 
States was acknowledged and the extent of their Territories 
defined, may make it improper for the government of this 
Country to form a separate Treaty with the State of Ver- 
mont, or whether it may be politically prudent all circum- 
stances considered, to risk giving offence to the Congress of 
the United States, by such a measure." He thought, how- 
ever, that it would certainly be of commercial benefit to 
Great Britain "to prevent Vermont and Kentuck and all 
the other settlements now forming in the Interior parts of 

^ F. J. Turner, "English policy toward America in 1790-1791," Amer. 
Hist. Review, 1902, viii. 78-86. 



68 AMERICAN DIPLOMACY 

the great Continent of North America, from becoming de- 
pendent on the Government of the United States or on that 
of any Foreign Country, and to preserve them on the con- 
trary in a state of Independence, and to induce them to form 
Treaties of Commerce and Friendship with Great Britai n/^ 
Great Britain had less to offer Kentucky than she could 
give to Vermont; moreover, her relations with the Indians 

, caused the settlers there to be, some of them 
Kentucky and . . . . i • i i 

the St. Law- suspicious, and an mcreasmg number violently 

'®°''® hostile. Yet the portages between the northern 

branches of the Ohio and the Great Lakes might be used 

as an outlet for Kentucky products, and in 1788, according 

to the report of John Connolly, a British agent in that region, 

the people were thinking of bargaining for this outlet down 

the St. Lawrence.^ 

It is not necessary to suppose that the Vermonters and 
Kentuckians were actually planning local independence, in 
Possibilities of order to realize that the continued failure of 
British control ^^le United States to open a channel for their 
commerce, combined with the possibility of accomplishing 
such a result by their own endeavors, was calculated speedily 
to develop a desire and a purpose for independence. Furthor- 
more, while the British government had no direct policy for 
bringing about a dissolution of the Union, it is evident that 
it was closely observing conditions in the West and was not 
inclined to relinquish anything that it held. With its con- 
trol of the Indians and of the St. Lawrence, it remained a 
factor in the development of the whole Northwest, irrespec- 
tive of boundaries. The future of the valley of the Great 
Lakes and of the northern part of the Ohio valley might yet 
prove to lie with Great Britain rather than with the United 
States. 

Of more immediate interest was the problem of the South- 
west, where the situation was similar to that in the north, 

1 Theodore Roosevelt, Winning of the West (4 vols.. New York, etc., 
1889-96), vol. iii. chs. iv.-v. 



THE WEST 69 

although the various factors differed in their relative weight 
and the need for a solution was more urgent. The future 
of the Mississippi valley probably lay in the Kentucky and 
hands of the American pioneers who were pour- Cumberland 
ing into that region. Their settlements constituted two oases 
in the wilderness. The more important, consisting of Scotch- 
Irish mountaineers and Revolutionary veterans largely from 
Virginia, was in the blue-grass district of Kentucky. In- 
creasing with great rapidity throughout the Confederation, 
it had in 1790 about 70,000 inhabitants. The other settle- 
ment, one hundred and fifty miles to the southwest, was in 
the Tennessee blue grass, about Nashville, and was known 
as the Cumberland district. Settled more exclusively by the 
mountaineer type, it had in 1790 less than half as large a pop- 
ulation as Kentucky, and was also more exposed, being sur- 
rounded by the powerful tribes of the southwestern Indians. 

Like the Vermonters, these invaders of the wilderness had 
shown their patriotism during the Revolution by fighting 
against the British; they had assisted George spirit of in- 
Rogers Clark in the capture of Kaskaskia and dependence 
Vincennes, and had themselves delivered the great blow at 
King's Mountain of which the story in ballad and fireside 
tale enlivened many a forest cabin for years to come. Like 
the Vermonters, however, it was independence that fired 
them, and not particularly loyalty to the American Union 
or even to their states. Tennessee had a government, headed 
by John Sevier, which claimed separation from the parent 
state of North Carolina; and Kentucky was anxious to or- 
ganize separately from Virginia. 

Their virgin farms produced abundant crops, and nearly all 
\7ere on the banks of rivers hurrying to meet the Mississippi 
and the sea. The forests furnished ready ma- 
terial for rafts and rude boats, and all nature 
invited to this easy path of export. It was only necessary to 
obtain the permission of the Spaniards to drift down to some 
point near the gulf, there tranship their goods at some place 



70 AMERICAN DIPLOMACY 

of deposit, and to return with the proceeds, either by sea 
to Philadelphia and thence home across the mountains, or 
buying a horse at New Orleans or Natchez ride home through 
the forests. During the Revolution, when we were to some 
extent cooperating with Spain, they had tested the advan- 
tages of this traflBc; but in 1786 Spain closed the route. To 
reopen it was the work of Congress.^ 

Jay, treating with Gardoqui at Philadelphia, pointed to 
the treaty of peace with England, which specifically declared 
The " right " that the navigation of the Mississippi should 
of navigation ^^ ^^qq from its source to the ocean, and to the 
treaty of 1763 between Great Britain and Spain, which had 
given England this right. Gardoqui claimed that the con- 
cession to England was a specific grant, which she had no 
power to transfer to another country. He refused to accept 
Jay's argument that the United States had a natural right 
to follow to the ocean all rivers on which any of its territory 
bordered; as a matter of fact, moreover, free navigation 
was of comparatively little use unless accompanied by the 
privilege of a place of deposit where rafts could be broken up 
and transhipment to ocean-going vessels made.^ 

Spain was the more tenacious of her position because of 
a misunderstanding regarding the Florida boundary. The 
The Florida treaty of 1783 between England and Spain 
boundary ^.^^j^ "jjj^ Britannic Majesty likewise cedes 

and guarantees, in full right, to His Catholic Majesty East 
Florida, as also West Florida." In the treaty of even date 
between England and the United States the northern bound- 
ary of West Florida was fixed at the thirty-first parallel. 
As between these two documents, the one indefinite, the 
other definite, the latter would naturally govern. Spain, 
however, claimed that "West Florida" was a definite term, 
that England had in 1764 extended the province to a line 
running through the mouth of the Yazoo. Moreover, her 

* Winsor, Westward Movement, 247-256. 
2 Secret Journals of Congress, iv. 42-132. 



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UNITED STATES 

1783-1790 

Scale of Miles 



100 200 300 400 

;^ American settled Territory and Posts \f | 

British settled Territory and Posts 



Spanish settled Territory and Posts | I 

Disputed or unsettled Boundaries 
Names of Indian Tribes are printed in Red 



THE WEST 71 

claim in equity is improved by a study of the preliminary 
articles of both treaties; for those of the American treaty 
agreed to the Yazoo boundary in case England remained in 
possession of West Florida, whereas the agreement with 
Spain was that she should "continue" to hold West Florida. 
Now, she actually did hold Natchez, the only important 
post in the disputed region. Technically the arguments 
balanced, but Spain "continued" to hold Natchez, which 
not only was a Spanish garrison town, but was peopled for 
the most part with American loyalists, who were averse to a 
transfer of authority. Congress was, therefore as unable to 
clear the national territory of foreign control to the south- 
west as to the northwest. 

Meantime the commercial interests of the coast were im- 
patient at having an agreement held up because of these 
western questions, which they felt to be of Uttle «« East " and 
concern. Not all, moreover, favored the open- " 
ing of the Mississippi. In addition to a feeling that western 
emigration weakened the older parts of the country, there 
was a distinct fear, voiced by such men as Rufus King, that, 
should the West learn to face down the Mississippi, the 
country would be divided into two spheres so distinct that 
union would cease to be possible. He believed that the de- 
velopment of the West had best wait on the slow process of 
creating transportation routes across the mountains. 

The position of Congress had been vacillating. In 1779 it 

had made the navigation of the Mississippi an ultimatum in 

any treaty with Spain; in 1781 it had withdrawn , . 
, . , . . . • 1 1 1 • J^y s proposal 

this condition; in 1784 it had returned to it. 

In 1786 Jay, who had ignored the instructions of 1781, con- 
cluded that he could not carry out those of 1784, and arranged 
a treaty with Gardoqui on the basis that the United States 
should forego the navigation for twenty-five years, without 
prejudicing her rights. This plan he recommended to Con- 
gress, with whom the question assumed a sectional aspect. 
The commercial regions, New England and the middle states. 



72 AMERICAN DIPLOISL\CY 

were in favor of it, the southern states, less interested in 
general commerce and more closely in touch with the West, 
were opposed. On one vote seven states out of the thirteen 
favored the proposal, but the decision was ultimately left 
over to the new government under the constitution. 

It was not till 1788, in the discussion of the Virginia con- 
vention over the ratification of the constitution, that the 
Western dis- West learned of this proposed betrayal of its 
content birthright. For several years, however, its 

inhabitants had been growing restless at the protracted 
failure of Congress to meet their wishes, a restiveness that 
was aggravated by the similar failure of Congress to deal 
effectually with their Indian enemies. 

The Southwestern Indians were more numerous than the 
Northwestern, and better organized; the five great tribes, 
Cherokee, Creeks, Choctaw, Chickasaw, and 
states and the Chicamauga, could together furnish perhaps 
fndl^s^'*^"" twenty thousand warriors. The close of the 
war found these tribes at enmity with the 
Americans. In 1785 commissioners arranged a treaty with 
the Cherokee, but the boundary provided was not satisfac- 
tory to the frontiersmen, and North Carolina stood by her 
citizens. The articles of Confederation gave Congress con- 
trol of Indian affairs only in the case of tribes not living within 
the limits of a single state. North Carolina, therefore, claim- 
ing to comprehend the Cherokee, denied the validity of the 
treaty. To the failure of Congress to open the Mississippi 
was thus added the failure to quiet the Indians upon satis- 
factory terms, and the people of the West came to believe 
that their happiness must depend on their own exertions. 

Under these circumstances the West became fertile ground 
for the development of plans and plots and conspiracies. 
Western proj- They grew up, withered, and revived again; 
®^*^ they adjusted themselves to times and condi- 

tions; they flourished now successively, and now sinmlta- 
neously even in the same mind. They stretched their threads 



THE WEST 73 

to Congress and the coast, and across the ocean to Madrid, 
Paris, and London; they connected themselves with the 
general history of the age. At times secret and unobserved, 
at times the central objects of attention, they together form 
one of the two leading themes of our diplomatic history until 
after 1803. During the Confederation they were practically 
all directed to the solution of western problems by some one 
of the following four methods, — by the self-reliant seizure of 
New Orleans, a task somewhat beyond existing resources; 
by submission to the control of Spain; by independence and 
alliance with Spain; or by independence and alliance with 
Great Britain. It is probable that the majority of the in- 
habitants were at most times disposed to follow a fifth 
course, — the obvious and legal one of urging their grievances 
upon the government of the United States in the hope that 
it would acquire the power to redress them. The supporters 
of this view, however, were often discouraged, for they were 
not sustained by any such deep-seated loyalty as developed 
when the nation had proved itself deserving of their de- 
votion. 

Fully aware of the situation, Spain was disposed to pull 
every string of intrigue in order to manipulate it to her own 
advantage. Her Indian policy was well con- xhe Spanish 
ceived and well executed. The government ^^^^ policy 
encouraged the great Scotch firm of Panton, Leslie and 
Company, whose American headquarters were at Pensacola. 
It saw to it that traders frequented the Indian villages, and 
that their rates for goods were moderate. It allowed a secret 
trade in firearms. It distributed generous presents. To 
the great chief of the Creeks, the most powerful man among 
the Indians, Alexander McGillivray, it paid a yearly pension. 
Of this man, Navarro, intendant or civil officer of Louisiana, 
wrote, April 15, 1786: "So long as we shall have this chief 
on our side, we may rely on having established, between 
the Floridas and Georgia, a barrier which it will not be easy 
to break through. The Indians are now fully convinced of 



74 AMERICAN DIPLOMACY 

the ambition of the Americans; the recollection of past in- 
juries still dwells on their minds, and, with it, the fear that 
these greedy neighbors may one day seize upon their lands, 
and strip them of a property to which they consider them- 
selves as having a right derived from nature herself. It 
ought to be one of the chief points in the policy of this Gov- 
ernment to keep this sentiment alive in their breasts." Upon 
these Indians, with the Creole population, the Spanish gov- 
ernment placed its greatest dependence for the defence of 
Louisiana, and through Louisiana of the mines of Mexico.^ 

It hoped, however, by intrigue with the western settlers 
to create a still more advanced barrier, namely, to acquire 
The coloniza- or to control the region which it had endeavored 
tion plan ^^ obtain in the negotiation of 1779 with Eng- 

land and of 1782 with Jay. Alert and eager as it was, how- 
ever, the Spanish government lacked unity of purpose. One 
of the plans considered was that of Navarro, who wrote, 
December 19, 1787: "It is necessary to keep in mind that, 
between this province and the territories of New Spain, 
there is nothing but the feeble barrier of the Mississippi, 
which it is as easy to pass as it is impossible to protect, and 
that, if it be good policy to fortify this province by drawing 
a large population within its limits, there are no other means 
than that of granting certain franchises to commerce, leaving 
aside, as much as possible, all restrictions and shackles, or 
at least postponing them to a future time, if they must exist. 
In addition, the government must distinguish itself by the 
equity of its administration, the suavity of its relations with 
the people, and the disinterestedness of its officers in their 
dealings with the foreigners who may resort to the colony. 
This is the only way to form, in a short time, a solid rampart 
for the protection of the kingdom of Mexico." ' 

' Charles Gayarre, History of Louisiana (3d ed., 4 vols.. New Orleans, 
1885), iii. 175 and passim; Rcxjsevelt, Winning of the West, vol. iii.; Winsor, 
Westward Movement. 

* Gayarre, Louisiana, iii. 189. 



THE WEST 75 

This plan was fostered by Gardoqui, who at Philadelphia 
entered into relations with Colonel George Morgan and ar- 
ranged a deal with him. Morgan received a grant of land 
and undertook to establish a colony, New Madrid, at the 
strategic point in what is now Missouri, opposite the mouth 
of the Ohio. George Rogers Clark was interested in a scheme 
to organize a similar colony on the Yazoo, and joined with 
him were James Wilkinson, John Brown, a delegate in Con- 
gress, Harry Inness, the attorney-general of the Kentucky 
district, and other men of influence and ambition. To make 
settlement in these new grants desirable it was proposed to 
allow emigrants to bring in their property free of duty and 
to enjoy religious tolerance; but of course the main induce- 
ment would be freedom to use the Mississippi. The essential 
point was to keep the river tight closed to those living in the 
American districts.^ 

With regard to the wisdom of this plan it may be remarked 
that, as immigrants of this kind would change their flag only 
for their personal advantage, the durability of james Wilkin- 
their loyalty to the Spanish crown might well be ^°° 
suspected. It was like asking the fox to guard the chickens. 
Something like this was felt by Miro, the governor of Louis- 
iana, to whom the tempter came in the form of James Wilkin- 
son. During the winter of 1775 a few hundred Americans, 
suffering sickness, icy cold, and want, had besieged Quebec. 
That little group must have possessed distinguished courage 
and a spirit of high adventure, but it contained also the 
three well-known traitors of our history, Benedict Arnold, 
Aaron Burr, and James Wilkinson. One can hardly refrain 
from supposing that over their camp-fires conversation often 
ran to the fascinating possibilities of Spanish America, to the 
mines of Mexico and Peru. Of the three, Wilkinson was the 
least, but the most enduring. 

Settling in Kentucky, this man no sooner won confidence 

1 C. H. Haskins, The Yazoo Land Companies, Amer. Hist. Assoc., Papers, 
1891, V. 395-437. 



76 AMERICAN DIPLOMACY 

by a successful raid against the Indians than he began to 
tread the shady paths of forest diplomacy. In 1786 he 
Independence visited Natchez and established relations with 
and alliance Gayoso, the Spanish commandant. The next 
year he descended the river with a cargo of tobacco, flour, 
butter, and bacon. He secured an interview with Miro, to 
whom he presented a plan for allowing a few prominent men 
of the American settlements the privileges of commerce, in 
return for which they would devote themselves to persuad- 
ing the whole region to declare its independence and form an 
alliance with Spain. Miro wrote, January 8, 1788: "The 
delivery of Kentucky into his Majesty's hands, which is the 
main object to which Wilkinson has promised to devote 
himself entirely, would forever constitute this province a 
rampart for the protection of New Spain." Wilkinson was 
allowed to complete his transactions, and with such of his 
profits as he did not hand over to Miro he went home by 
way of Philadelphia.^ 

It is obvious that this project was somewhat at variance 
with the colonization scheme, for it would furnish relief to 
Kentucky un- some at least of the inhabitants of Kentucky, 
decided Instead of deciding definitively upon one plan 

or the other, however, the Spanish authorities tried to ride 
both. They somewhat distrusted Wilkinson, as they did 
the proposed colonizers, and by limiting trading privileges 
to a few they hoped still to attract immigration. Wilkinson, 
meantime, whatever his ultimate intentions may have been, 
pushed his plans. He hoped to secure the consent of Vir- 
ginia to the organization of Kentucky as a separate state, 
and tlien to apply the process later known as secession. In 
July, 1788, he made his proposals to the Kentucky constitu- 
tional convention, and, although he did not win their adop- 
tion, he secured a postponement of the final decision. In 
June, Miro had written home that he heard from Kentucky 
that in various conversations " among the most distinguished 
^ T. M. Green, Spanish Conspiracy, Cincinnati, 1891. 



THE WEST 77 

citizens of that State," it had been said "that the direction 
of the current of the rivers which run in front of their dwell- 
ings points clearly to the power to which they ought to ally 
themselves." 

Miro did not neglect Tennessee. Of the settlers in the 
Nashville region the most prominent was James Robertson. 
Restless under the restraint of trade, but even Miro and 
more under the Indian attacks, he at any rate Tennessee 
coquetted with the Spaniards. McGillivray wrote, April 25, 
1788, that the Cumberland settlers had asked for terms, "and 
added that they would throw themselves into the arms of 
his Majesty as subjects, and that Cumberland and Kentucky 
are determined to free themselves from their dependence 
on Congress, because that body cannot protect either their 
persons or their property, or favor their commerce. They 
therefore, believe that they owe no obedience to a power 
which is incapable of benefiting them." Even in the valleys 
of East Tennessee, John Sevier, foremost man of the dis- 
trict, in 1788 offered his services to Miro and Gardoqui, 
although he subsequently withdrew from the connec- 
tion.^ 

The government under the Confederation, therefore, not 
only failed to open up commerce with the Mediterranean 
and the West Indies, and to put that with Diplomatic 
Spain upon a desirable basis, but it was unable ^^^^^ 
to occupy the territory granted to the United States by the 
treaty of 1783, either in the northwest or on the Florida 
border. It was unable to quiet the Indians of north or south, 
or to provide commercial outlets for the trans-Appalachian 
settlers. Its failure was causing not only discontent but 
disloyalty, and to such a degree that, although the racial 
control of the great valley was probably determined by the 
character of the aggressive population already on the spot, 
its governmental future was still uncertain. 

^ Roosevelt, Winning of the West, iii. chs. iii.-v. ; Winsor, Westward Move- 
ment, 334. 



78 AMERICAN DIPLOMACY 

While the western situation was not widely appreciated 
in the older portion of the country, the financial plight was 
The danger of fully realized. Owing to the lack of national 
the debt resources, the interest on our foreign debt was 

met only by occasional sales of such portions of the Dutch 
loan arranged by Adams as had not been immediately taken 
up.^ The loans from France were still unprovided for, and 
it was the gossip of diplomatic circles that France might take 
the island of Rhode Island as her payment." To the public 
mind of Europe in 1789, the acquisition of a French naval 
base on the United States coast seemed no more improbable 
than the acquisition of a United States naval base in Cuba 
seems to-day. It was by no means an accepted opinion 
that the United States would prove to be more than what we 
call to-day a protectorate, under French or English influence. 
The public debt was one of the weapons of France, as it has 
since so often been the key to European interference in the 
weaker countries of the world. Even though we were not 
actually in danger of being forced into jjolitical dependency, 
Europe had yet to be convinced that we were not. The fu- 
ture independence as well as the future limits of the country 
were in 1789 felt to be undetermined. 

* John Adams, Works, see index under loans. 

2 For the French position, see "Correspondence of the Comte de Moustier 
[French Minister in the United States] with the Comte de Montmorin," 
Amer. Hist. Review, 1903, viii. 709-733; for rumors, see Buckingham's letter 
to Temple, Mass. Hist. Soc, Proceedings, 1866, p. 75. 



CHAPTER VIII 

OLD PROBLEMS IN NEW HANDS * 

Under the Articles of Confederation the administration 
had proved too weak to perform the duties of a national 
government in maintaining the rights and 
interests of its citizens among the nations powers of the 
of the world. This failure in diplomacy was e^g^t ^°^' 
one of the causes for the formation of a stronger 
central authority. Naturally, therefore, the constitution 
gave the new government a freer hand in dealing with inter- 
national affairs. The states conceded to the nation almost 
complete control of war, peace, treaty-making, army and 
navy, commerce, naturalization, and Indian affairs; and 
treaties were made the law of the land, enforceable by the 
national supreme court. The only limitations were that the 
importation of slaves was not to be prohibited for twenty 
years, that no taxes should be levied on exports, and no prefer- 
ence given to the ports of one state over those of another. 
In actual practice, these limitations proved to give rise to 
little controversy and to hamper the national government 

1 J. D. Richardson, Messages and Papers of the Presidents, 10 vols., to 
1899, with continuations by other editors (contains valuable summaries 
and discussions); Journal of the Executive Proceedings of the Senate, 1789- 
1901, 32 vols, in 34, Washington, 1828-1911 (contains votes on treaties 
and appointments) ; Compilation of Reports of [Senate] Committee on Foreign 
Relations, 1789-1901, 8 vols., Washington, 1901 (Senate Doc, 56 Cong., 2 
sess.. No. 231); American State Papers, Foreign Relations, 6 vols., Washing- 
ton, 1832-59 (gives such correspondence as was submitted to Congress 
from 1789 to 1828; that between 1828 and 1860 is not collected [see Hart, 
Foundations of American Foreign Policy, 281-283]; since 1800 selected 
material has been published each year, although further papers are still 
presented to Congress on call from time to time); J. B. Moore, Digest of 
International Law as embodied . . . especially in Documents . . . of the 
United States, 8 vols., Washington, 1906 (House Doc, 56 Cong., 2 sess.. 
No. 551; an invaluable aid, discussing all points involving questions of law). 

79 



80 AMERICAN DIPLOMACY 

very little in its negotiations; but the failure to give the 
government full control of aliens within the limits of the 
states, coupled with the fact that foreign nations have held 
it to be responsible for them, has occasionally caused trouble. 

Within the government, the direction of foreign affairs 
was given to the President, but the appointment of "ambas- 
The executive sadors, other public ministers, and consuls" 
and Congress requires the confirmation of the Senate, and 
treaties must be ratified by a two-thirds vote of the same 
body. The relation of the House of Representatives to 
diplomacy has proved one of the most baflfling ambiguities 
of the constitution. A minister appointed by the President 
and confirmed by the Senate is an official of the United 
States. He can, however, draw no salary unless one is pro- 
vided for by Congress as a whole. In the same way a treaty 
confirmed by the Senate is the law of the land and enforceable 
by the supreme court; but if it provides for the expenditure 
of money it cannot be executed unless the House consents. 
A treaty, moreover, often fixes rates to be paid on imported 
articles and on the vessels carrying them; but of no power 
are the representatives more jealous than that of regulating 
customs duties, a function clearly granted by the constitu- 
tion to Congress as a whole. Although these questions have 
never been authoritatively adjudicated upon, and perhaps 
never can be, it may be said that Congress as a body has 
directed the expansion of the diplomatic service, that the 
House, although it has sometimes delayed discharging finan- 
cial obligations laid upon the nation by treaties, has never 
failed to do so eventually, and that, on the other hand, it 
has never yielded its direction of commercial policy. 

When Washington took office in April, 1789, he found no 
organization by means of which he could execute his diplo- 
The determin- niatic powers. Congress, however, speedily 
ation of policy provided for a department of state, charged 
chiefly with that function, its secretary becoming in effect 
foreign minister. The natural selection for this office was 



OLD PROBLEMS IN NEW HANDS 81 

John Jay, but he preferred the position of chief justice, 
Washington therefore appointed Thomas Jefferson, who had 
served on the committee of correspondence of the Continental 
Congress and since 1784 had been minister to France. For- 
eign afiFairs were, however, of such critical moment through- 
out the Federalist period that all questions of policy were 
discussed by the whole cabinet, together with Jay and the vice- 
president John Adams. As a matter of fact, Jefferson's opin- 
ion was seldom followed; his influence was modifying rather 
than directing. The responsibility and the credit belong 
primarily to the presidents, Washington and, later, Adams.^ 

Although conditions of intercourse were better than dur- 
ing the Revolution, they were still poor, and a close-knit 
policy was impossible. It was very difficult, „ . 
moreover, to induce fit men to accept appoint- diplomatic 
ments in the regular diplomatic service. Sala- 
ries, while perhaps more adequate than they are to-day, were 
smaller than during the Revolution. The social allure which 
now renders so many patriots willing to spend abroad for 
their country was not strong enough to cross the Atlantic 
in the cheerless barks of that day. Old men feared the voy- 
age; young men like John Quincy Adams disliked to aban- 
don their professions for positions of "nominal respecta- 
bility and real insignificance." Consequently it was found 
impossible to keep first-class ministers except at London and 
Paris. Spain was ill-supplied, and the missions to Holland, 
Portugal, Russia, and Prussia were only occasionally filled. 
In this situation the government resorted to the expedient 
of sending special missions in important crises, and at such 
times it was well served. 

The consular service was still less satisfactory. The only 
positions that carried salaries were those to the Barbary 
states, which were semi-diplomatic in character. In all 

^ On organization, see Schuyler, American Diplomacy, chs. i-iii; J. W. 
Foster, The Practice of Diplomacy, Boston, 1910; Gaillard Hunt, Depart- 
ment of State, New Haven, 1914. 



82 AMERICAN DIPLOMACY 

other cases compensation came from fees alone. The result 
was that consuls usually had to be chosen from merchants 
The consular trading at the ports, who in many cases were 
service jjq|- Americans. The whole idea of using con- 

suls as a means of advancing national commercial interests 
was of later growth in the United States. At that time 
their services were purely those of trade regulation and 
registration. 

The strength of the new government was first apparent at 
home, and next appeared in the handling of those diplomatic 
Financial problems which were also in part domestic, 

strength -pj^^ financial resources developed by Hamil- 

ton's management at once settled the question of credit, 
and never since that time has the United States offered an 
excuse for foreign interference by failing to meet its financial 
obligations, or even by being in danger of such failure. The 
repudiation of portions of their debts by some of the in- 
dividual states, however, has at times caused trouble, 
though never danger. 

Wliile settling its finances, the new government took a 

first step toward developing the loyalty of the frontier by 

admitting Vermont, Kentucky, and Tennessee 

R,6pr6S6nt&- tin • 

tionofthe to statehood, the first two m 1791 and 1792 

respectively, the last in 1796. Thus recog- 
nized, the new states were inclined to await somewhat more 
loyally, if not more patiently, the solution of their special 
problems. 

The Indian question was taken up vigorously, though not 
with entire success. Various laws were passed to diminish the 
friction between the savages and the pioneers 
and traders; and finally Washington, in his fifth 
annual message, recommended the establishment of govern- 
ment trading-houses among them "to conciliate their attach- 
ment." In 1796 this system was adopted, in the hope thereby 
to detach them from the Spaniards and English. Tackle 
wrote to Lord Bathurst, November 24, 1812: "Of all the 



OLD PROBLEMS IN NEW HANDS 83 

projects of Genl. Washington, after effecting the separation 
of those Colonies from the mother country; I apprehend 
this of the Trading houses, best calculated to undermine the 
influence of Great Britain, with the Indians." ^ 

While this general policy was being worked out, negotia- 
tions were carried on with the various tribes. McGillivray 
and other chiefs were brought to New York, feted, and 
bribed. In spite of obstacles which the Spaniards were sup- 
posed to, and probably did, interpose, a treaty was arranged 
with the Creeks in 1790; ^ and in the same year orders were 
given that the treaty of Hopewell, made in 1785 with the 
Cherokee, be observed by the white settlers. Peace was thus 
established in the southwest, although the situation was not 
conducive to slumber. 

In the northwest, negotiation proved futile, and Washing- 
ton advised that economy would "point to prompt and deci- 
sive effort rather than to defensive and linger- 

Iiicli&ii wflxs 

ing operations." The means at his disposal 

were, however, insufficient. In 1790 General Harmer was sent 
against the Indians and disastrously defeated, and the fol- 
lowing year a more formidable expedition under St. Clair, 
governor of Northwest Territory, went down in utter rout. 
General Wayne, whose nickname "Mad Anthony" is appro- 
priate only if it is considered as implying the presence of 
dash and not the absence of judgment, was then appointed 
to the command of the western department. It was the 
spring of 1794 before he moved against the Indians. In 
February they had been encouraged by an injudicious speech 
of Lord Dorchester, and they now took their stand near a 
newly-established British fort at the rapids of the Maumee, 
twenty miles within American territory. General Knox, 
secretary of war, wrote to Wayne: "If, therefore, in the 

1 Wisconsin Hist. Soc., Collections, 1911, xx. 4-5; Washington, Works 
(ed. Ford), xi. 465. 

^ John Marshall, Life of Washington (5 vols., Philadelphia, 1804-07), 
V. 274. 



84 AMERICAN DIPLOMACY 

course of your operations against the Indian enemy, it should 
become necessary to dislodge the party at the rapids of the 
Miami, [sic] you are hereby authorized, in the name of the 
President of the United States, to do it." Wayne, however, 
succeeded in inflicting a decisive defeat upon the Indians in 
the battle of Fallen Timbers, without becoming oflBcially in- 
volved with the British, though he notified General Knox, 
"It is with infinite pleasure that I announce to you the bril- 
liant success of the Federal army under my command, in a 
general action with the combined force of the hostile Indians, 
and a considerable number of the volunteers and militia of 
Detroit." Peace with the Indians, however, did not come 
until the next year, 1795, after the Jay treaty had been 
framed and continued peace between Great Britain and 
America seemed assured. Defeated and deserted, the In- 
dians agreed to the treaty of Greenville, which granted the 
Americans a large portion of what is now Ohio and a part of 
Indiana. By 1795, therefore, the new government had ac- 
complished one of its tasks in restoring peace to the frontier 
and making itself respected by the Indians. It could not, 
however, put an end to the inevitable conflict between the 
onward-pushing forces of American civilization and the 
inhabitants of the forest, who continued to lean for support 
upon the less aggressive Spaniards and English. This peace 
constituted merely a truce, but a truce which allowed tens 
of thousands of American pioneers to establish themselves 
in the wilderness and to tip the balance substantially in favor 
of the United States before the hostile forces closed in final 
struggle.^ 

One problem did not wait upon another, and during these 
same years the questions of commerce were being discussed. 
With regard to the Barbary states the administration adopted 
the European practice of purchasing peace. Yet, even with 

' H. A. Hinsdale, Old Northwest (New York. 1888), 184ff.; also unpub- 
lished theses by Shong and Groves in the library of the University of Wis- 
consin. 



OLD PROBLEMS IN NEW HANDS 85 

money and a willingness to use it, the difficulties remained 
serious. It was not till 1795 that a treaty was arranged 
with Algiers, to be followed in 1796 by a Mediterranean 
similar one with Tripoli, and finally, in 1799, *^^^® 
by one with Tunis. Then the coast seemed clear. In spite 
of these treaties and the expenditure of nearly two million 
dollars, however, there continued to be such constant trouble 
that the Federalist administration can hardly be said to 
have made the Mediterranean a safe route for American 
commerce.^ 

But far more important was the question of general com- 
mercial policy, the source which was expected not merely to 
provide the government with most of its reve- The merchant 
nue, but also to advance the interests of Amer- ™^"°® 
ican merchants and ship-owners. It was a question which 
lay with Congress rather than with the administration. The 
first point, after the imposition of a customs tariflF, was 
whether there should be discrimination in favor of American 
as opposed to foreign vessels, a policy that was opposed by 
the agricultural interests on the ground that it would inevi- 
tably mean higher freight rates. By the commercial interests 
it was of course strongly urged, and with them sided what 
we may call the nationalists. Jefferson, although from an 
agricultural state, argued: "In times of general peace, it 
multiplies competition for employment in transportation, 
and so keeps it at its proper level, and in times of war, that 
is to say, when those nations who may be our principal car- 
riers, shall be at war with each other, if we have not within 
ourselves the means of transportation, our products must be 
exported in belligerent vessels, at the increased expense of 
war freights and insurance, and the articles which will not 
bear it, must perish on our hands." It was finally voted 
that American vessels should pay six cents duty per ton on 
entering a port, and foreign vessels fifty cents. To encourage 
American ship-building, American-built, foreign-owned ves- 
* J. B. Moore, American Diplomacy (New York, etc., 1905), 63-7i2. 



86 AMERICAN DIPLOMACY 

sels were to pay a middle rate, thirty cents. In addition, 
American vessels were to receive ten per cent rebate from the 
duties imposed on their cargoes. 

Keener discussion raged on a second point, — whether 
there should be discrimination between the vessels of various 
Discrimina- foreign countries according to their treatment 
^°^ of our vessels. The strongest advocate of this 

policy was Jefferson, who in December, 1793, submitted to 
Congress a remarkably able report setting forth his views. 
"Our commerce," he declared, "is certainly of a character 
to entitle it to favor in most countries. The commodities 
we offer are either necessaries of life, or materials for manu- 
facture, or convenient subjects of revenue; and we take in 
exchange, either manufactures, when they have received the 
last finish of art and industry, or mere luxuries." He thought 
that by discrimination we could force the nations of the 
world, and Great Britain in particular, to throw open their 
ports on our own terms. ^ 

By the commercial classes this plan was opposed as imprac- 
ticable. They realized that trade is seldom much more profit- 
able to one nation than to another, that actually 

Retaliation i n p • i /~i 

the greater bulk oi our commerce was with (jrreat 
Britain, and that she might retaliate. Fisher Ames wrote, 
July 2, 1789: "But arc we Yankees invulnerable, if a war 
of regulations should be waged with Britain.? Are they not 
able to retaliate? Are they not rich enough to bear some loss 
and inconvenience? Would not their pride spurn at the idea 
of being forced into a treaty?"^ Jefferson's plan, there- 
fore, although supported warmly by Madison in the House 
of Representatives, was defeated, and he was forced to 
pigeon-hole it among those policies which were await- 
ing the day, which he believed certain to come, when 
the people would confide their welfare to his willing 
hands. 

1 Amcr. State Papers, Foreign, i. 300-304. 

2 Fisher .\iiics, IVorka (ed. Seth Ames, 2 vols., Boston, 1854), i. 57-60. 



OLD PROBLEMS IN NEW HANDS 87 

These measures for fostering the American merchant ma- 
rine actually worked, and, in combination with circumstance, 
worked marvellously. American ships rapidly Diplomatic 
secured not only our whole coasting trade ^*i^"^es 
but about eighty per cent of our foreign trade, and held it 
for many years. The commercial classes became enthusias- 
tic for a government that could do so much by its own 
regulations. In matters which required the mutual con- 
sent of other governments, however, success was not 
so immediate. Spain could not be persuaded to open the 
Mississippi, and Great Britain allowed the use of the 
St. Lawrence only by highly exceptionable special agree- 
ments with Vermont. The British West Indies remained 
closed. 

While these essential matters were still unsettled, we did 
force from Great Britain an important courtesy. That 
country had steadily refused to commission a First minister 
minister to the United States, her commercial ^'■°'° England 
interests being well attended to by a consul-general. Sir 
John Temple, and the active Phineas Bond, consul at Phila- 
delphia. With the return of Adams in 1788 we were equally 
unrepresented in England, nor could we, consistently with 
our self-respect, again appoint a minister until Great Britain 
was willing to reciprocate. To meet the situation, which 
was not only inconvenient but, considering all conditions, 
dangerous as well, Washington sent Gouverneur Morris 
unofficially to England. He succeeded in impressing the 
English ministry with the friendliness of the American 
administration, and the probability of hostile commercial 
legislation by Congress if England remained obdurate, with 
the result that in 1791 George Hammond was appointed 
minister just in time, as Lord Grenville was informed, to 
prevent the passage of an act discriminating against English 
commerce. The next year Thomas Pinckney was sent as 
American minister to Great Britain. Although neither 
Pinckney nor Hammond accomplished definite results, the 



88 AMERICAN DIPLOMACY 

exchange of ministers somewhat enhanced the prestige of 
the United States.^ 

Wliile formulating these general policies, the government 
found itself confronted by an episode which for a moment 
pulled taut all the strings of American diplo- 
macy. The situation quickly relaxed, it is true, 
but in that moment were brought to view motives and forces 
which were to play a vital part in the history of the United 
States for many years to come. In the same month in which 
Washington was inaugurated, two Spanish war vessels, un- 
authorized by their government, seized some goods left by an 
English company which intended upon its own responsibility 
to form a permanent commercial settlement at Nootka 
Sound, on what is now called the island of Vancouver, at that 
time one of the most remote spots on the sea-washed earth. 
As fast as the wind could carry the ships of the day, the 
news was brought to the courts of England and Spain. ^ 

The affair was accidental, but it involved the fundamental 
interests and the long-established views of both countries. 
The verge of England could not let the seizure go unnoticed 
^" without recognizing the Spanish claim to the 

unoccupied coast of North America, a claim resting entirely 
upon a questioned discovery. A virile growing power, she 
had for two hundred years denied such prescriptive rights. 
Spain, on the other hand, could not make amends without 
either giving up her claims to ownership or acknowledging 
the breakdown of her policy of commercial exclusion. Both 
nations prepared for war. Spain called on France, who, 
although the Revolution had begun, was still bound to her 
by the Family Alliance. Pitt made ready to regain the 

* E. D. Adams, The Influence of Grenville on Pitt's Foreign Policy, 1787- 
1798, Washington, 1904; Dropmorc Papers (British Hist. Mss. Commission, 
Report, 1894, xiv. pt. v.), ii. 228, 250, 263, 444. 

* W. R. Manning, The Nootka Sound Controversy, Amer. Hist. Assoc., 
Report, 1904, pp. 279-478; W. E. H. Lecky, England in the Eighteenth Cen- 
tury (8 vols., London, 1878-90), v. 206-209; H. H. Bancroft, Northwest 
Coast (2 vols., San Francisco, 1884), i. 180-225. 



OLD PROBLEMS IN NEW HANDS 89 

golden colonies of Spain won by his father but lost through 
the policy of George III. 

To Pitt's hand lay many strange instruments. Among 
them was William A. Bowles, a fantastic American loyalist, a 
portrait-painter, an actor, a soldier, who was pitt and the 
at this time adventuring for a fortune in trade ^"^^^^^ 
with the southwestern Indians. A rival of the Spanish- 
sympathizing McGillivray, he offered to organize among the 
Indians a force to capture the mines of Mexico. "I should 
inform your Lordship," he wrote to Lord Grenville, January 
13, 1791, "that these Speculations would meet with other 
support than the force of the Creek and Cherokee Nation. 
There are now settled in the Cumberland Country [a] set of 
men, who are the Relicts of the American Army; These people 
are weary of their Situation. ... I have had a request 
from . . . [them] to lead them on an expedition to the 
Spanish settlements, that being the object of adventure now 
most thought of, in that part of the world. . . . These 
people are desirous on any terms, of coming to settle 
amongst us, as well for the objects of peace as those of War, 
For, at present, they are shut out from the sea. They feel 
no attachment to the Americans and would be glad to 
abandon everything for a situation near the Sea in our 
Country [the Indian lands]." ^ 

More formidable than Bowles was the mysterious Francisco 
de Miranda. A native of that hive of revolution, Caracas of 
Venezuela, he left a Spanish post in 1782 and ,.. . 
devoted his life to the cause of freeing Spanish 
America. Had he directed his efforts toward internal prepara- 
tion rather than to securing foreign assistance, he might 
perhaps have anticipated Bolivar as the successful leader of 
that movement; but, again, he might have been shot sooner 
than he was. From 1790 till 1810 he is always to be found 
hovering about the courts of whatever powers seemed most 

^ F. J. Turner, "English Policy toward America in 1790-1791," Amer. 
Hist. Review, 1902, vii. 706-735. 



90 AMERICAN DIPLOMACY 

likely to welcome a project against Spain, A man of ability 
and with an unusual capacity for winning confidence, he 
was successively in close contact with England, France, Eng- 
land again, and at times with Russia and the United States. 
His plan at this time was the formation of a great independent 
Spanish-American constitutional monarchy in commercial 
alliance with Great Britain.^ 

It is obvious that such proposals touched the United 
States very nearly, and would have much disturbed its 

^ . ^ government had it known of them. Still more 

Spam, Eng- f 

land, and the nnportant, however, and more apparent was 
the prevalent feeling that, should a general 
war break out, the United States would necessarily become 
involved in it. Spain sought American favor by failing to 
seize two American ships that were at Nootka Sound. She 
also began to speak soft on the Mississippi question. Pitt, 
however, brought the subject up in more concrete form. 
Influenced by Miranda or by his own designs, he made ar- 
rangements for a descent upon New Spain. He had agents 
at Charleston and New York; he considered the advisability 
of sending troops from India against the west coast of Mexico; 
and particularly he thought it possible to use the troops at 
Detroit against New Orleans. As this project involved cross- 
ing American territory, he sent an agent to sound the Amer- 
ican government as to its attitude. This agent, Major Beck- 
with, met Hamilton in July, 1790, and requested permission 
thus to use American territory should it prove desirable. He 
spoke of the cause of the expected rupture, observing that 
"it was one in which all commercial nations must be sup- 
posed to favor the views of Great Britain, that it was there- 
fore presumed, should war take place, that the United States 

' F. J. Turner, "English Policy toward America in 1790-1791," Amer. 
Hist. Review, 1902, vii. 706-735; also W. S. Robertson, Francisco de Miranda 
and the Revolutionizing of Spanish America, Amer. Hist. Assoc., Report, 1907, 
i. 189-539; Hubert Hall, "Pitt and General Miranda," Athenwum. April 19, 
1902, pp. 498-499. 



OLD PROBLEMS IN NEW HANDS 91 

would find it to their interest to take part with Great Britain 
rather than with Spain." 

This was the first question of high diplomacy presented 
to the new government. Our two neighbors were apparently 
about to go to war. Should we side with Spain, united states 
or with Great Britain, or remain neutral.'* Policy 
What would be the obligations of neutrality? what its rights.'' 
On August 27 Washington asked his advisers for their opin- 
ions on the crisis. They discussed it broadly. Jefferson 
feared an English conquest of Florida and Louisiana. "Em- 
braced from the St. Croix to the St. Mary on Jefferson's 
the one side by their possessions," he wrote, ^^'^^^ 
" on the other by their fleet, we need not hesitate to say that 
they would soon find means to unite to them all the territory 
covered by the ramifications of the Mississippi." Under 
such circumstances he looked forward to "bloody and 
eternal war or indissoluble confederacy" with her. "In 
my opinion," he said, "we ought to make ourselves 
parties in the general war expected to take place, should 
this be the only means of preventing the calamity." He 
hoped that by way of compromise England might allow us 
Florida and New Orleans; and on the immediate question 
of permission to cross our territory he advised delay. ^ 

Hamilton inclined toward England. "It is not to be 
doubted," he wrote, September 15, 1790, "that the part 
which the courts of France and Spain took in Hamilton's 
our quarrel with Great Britain, is to be attrib- ^^^^^ 
uted, not to an attachment to our independence or liberty, 
but to a desire of diminishing the power of Great Britain 
by severing the British empire," a view in which Jay naturally 
agreed with him. Although Hamilton recognized the danger 
of permitting Great Britain to take Florida and Louisiana, 
he felt that our refusal to allow the expedition would 
not prevent it, but would involve us in the war on the 

^ Thomas Jefferson, Writings (ed. P. L. Ford, 10 vols., New York, etc., 
1892-99), V. 228, 238, August 28, 1790. 



92 AMERICAN DIPLOMACY 

side of Spain, who was sure to lose. He too would delay, 
but would grant the permission if the issue were forced.^ 

John Adams alone struck the note of absolute neutrality 
which was to characterize American diplomacy. Already 
Adams and in 1782 he had written Livingston: "America 

neutrality ^iSis been long enough involved in the wars of 

Europe. She has been a football between contending nations 
from the beginning, and it is easy to foresee, that France 
and England both will endeavor to involve us in their future 
wars. It is our interest and duty to avoid them as much as 
possible, and to be completely independent, and to have 
nothing to do with either of them, but in commerce." He 
therefore advised refusal. Should the troops be sent with- 
out permission, we could remonstrate.^ 

Fortunately the real issue had already been decided by 

the defeat of Mirabeau in the debate of May 20-22 in the 

_ ^ National Assembly of France. Louis XVI and 
War averted . . 

his advisers had hoped by war to turn the rismg 

tide of revolution into patriotism. In that case the King 

needed to retain the right of making peace and war, and to 

this end Mirabeau exerted himself. When, however, the 

Assembly voted that it alone possessed the right, the chance 

that France might join Spain passed, and Spain was forced 

to seek terms of England.^ 

The treaty between them, signed October 28, 1790, was 

of importance to the United States both immediately and 

Nootka Sound subsequently. The third and sixth articles 

*'®**y allowed freedom of trade and settlement on 

the coasts of the Pacific, "in places not already occupied," 

north of "the parts occupied by Spain," that is, practically 

above San Francisco bay. Although this relaxation of 

^ Alexander Hamilton, Works (ed. J. C. Hamilton, 7 vols., New York, 
1850-51), iv. 48-69, September 15, 1790. 

2 John Adams. Works, viii. 9, 497-500, August 29, 1790. 

3 F. M. Fling, Mirabeau and the French Revolution, N. Y., 1908. Albert 
Sorel, L Europe cl la revolution Jrangaisc (8 vols., Paris, 1885-1904) ii. 61, 
84-95. 



OLD PROBLEMS IN NEW HANDS 93 

Spanish control applied specifically to England, the Ameri- 
cans profited by it. Already frequenting the coast for 
its furs and gingseng, they would in the long run at least 
have been annoyed by Spanish interference, had it not been 
for this treaty. As it was, in the next year Captain Gray 
sailed, the first white man, into the great river of the region 
and named it after his ship, the Columbia, thus establishing 
the first link in the chain of claims which was to bring Oregon 
to the United States. 

It is plain that, when the end of Washington's first term 
approached in 1793, the diplomatic situation did not warrant 
his withdrawal with the sense of leaving a task Uncompleted 
accomplished. Nearly everything was still *^^^^ 
unsettled, and he consented to serve again in hope of carrying 
the various problems to solution. Nevertheless, the govern- 
ment was feeling the good influence of improved stability, 
the administration had determined its policy on some im- 
portant questions, and on most others its individual mem- 
bers had begun to find themselves. 



CHAPTER IX 

THE ESTABLISHMENT OF NEUTRALITY 

Thus prepared, the United States was in the spring of 1793 
overtaken by a hurricane of diplomatic disturbance which 
_ . . was to blow with increasing violence for twenty- 

French two years. The revolution which began to 

take form in 1789 was, in the minds of its 
leaders, only accidentally French. Its ideals were equally 
applicable to all nations in which the people were oppressed 
by their rulers. This international character of its profes- 
sions, which it retained to the end, was at the beginning in 
some degree actually true. It was welcomed by liberals 
in all countries. It crossed the channel into England. As 
Wordsworth wrote, 

" Bliss was it in that dawn to be alive. 
But to be young was very heaven." 

When the Bastile fell Lafayette sent its keys to Washing- 
ton, a recognition of the indebtedness which the cause of 
revolution owed to America. French fashions for the first 
time invaded our country; and civic feasts, liberty caps, 
and the salutation of "citizen" and "citizeness" became 
common in our streets. 

As one wave of radicalism succeeded another in France, 
each raising the tide of revolution higher toward the final 
fury of the Terror, the enthusiasm of the more 
France and moderate cooled, died, and turned to opposi- 
"*■ tion. By 1793 England had become in effect 

a unit in resisting the spread of Revolution, and for the ma- 
jority of Englishmen Revolution had come to be embodied 
in France. The inoculation of humanity was not able to 
cope with the traditional antipathies of French and English. 

94 



THE ESTABLISHMENT OF NEUTRALITY 95 

France continued to fight for the ideal of "Liberty," but 
England had come to personify for her the forces of oppress 
sion. In February, 1793, she anticipated a declaration of 
war on the part of England by declaring war with that 
country herself. 

In America sentiment divided. Jefferson liked the French, 
as had Franklin. He had played a part in the beginning of 
their revolution and knew many of their American 
leaders. He had a French cook, and he intro- sympathies 
duced from France the revival of classic forms of architec- 
ture. Himself as peaceful as a Quaker, he was not troubled 
over a little blood-letting. He had said at the time of the 
Shays Rebellion that the tree of liberty must from time to 
time be watered by the blood of patriots and tyrants; " it is 
its natural manure." Serene in his belief in the ultimate 
triumph of right and reason, he looked without flinching 
upon the excesses of the Terror, and maintained his sympathy 
with the fundamental purpose of the movement. Hamil- 
ton, on the other hand, to whom civilization seemed based 
upon the slow and precarious triumph of informed intelli- 
gence over brutish ignorance, saw the whole structure totter- 
ing in France with the successes of the sans culottes, and 
imperilled in the world at large. Between the two was every 
shade of opinion, and in fact many were more radical than 
either. To the danger that would inevitably come to the 
United States of being drawn into the vortex of any war 
between France and Great Britain was added the peril of 
being divided within itself over the issue. It was probably 
fortunate that at this crisis both opinions were represented 
in the cabinet, and it was incalculably advantageous that 
the government was presided over by Washington's force, 
prestige, and balance.^ 

France, taking arms against the "impious hand of tyrants," 
— the governments of England, Prussia, Austria, Holland, 

1 C. D. Hazen, Contemporary American Opinion of the French Revolution, 
Baltimore, 1897. 



96 AMERICAN DIPLOMACY 

and Spain, — did not lose sight of America. Even in the 

kaleidoscopic whirl of Paris Americans were conspicuous. 

^ . Thomas Paine sought to become the essayist 

French hopes f "^ 

of the United of the new revolution, as he had been of the 
American; John Paul Jones was ready to repeat 
his naval triumphs in its behalf; the poet, Joel Barlow, dab- 
bled now in land speculation, now in politics. Brissot de 
Warville, "who ruled the council," had in 1788 completed 
a voyage through America. When, therefore, the French 
republic was proclaimed, September 22, 1792, there was a 
reasonable hope on the part of its leaders that it would find 
sympathy and support from the sister republic across the 
ocean. The two countries were bound together by the inti- 
mate treaties of 1778 and 1788; the United States owed 
France money, the hastened payment of which would ease 
her finances; the American merchant marine could be use- 
ful to France in many ways and would find such occupation 
profitable. To announce the new republic, to realize these 
advantages, to replace the existing treaties by a still closer 
one, by "a true family compact" on a "liberal and fraternal 
basis," Edmund C. Genet, an enthusiastic patriot, only 
twenty-eight years of age and yet trained for many years in 
the foreign office under Vergennes, was sent as minister to 
the United States.^ 

But Genet was not to be a mere diplomatic representative, 
as that term is now understood. French ministers during the 
Revolution felt themselves commissioned, not 
from government to government, but from 
people to people. They embodied revolution; their functions 
were unlimited; and in this case Genet's instructions definitely 
launched him into colossal enterprises. All America was his 
province. Miranda was now high in the counsels of the 
French; Dumouriez wrote to Lebrun, November 30, 1792, 
of the "superb project of General Miranda" for revolu- 

1 McMaster, History of the People of the United States (8 vols.. New York, 
1883-1913), ii. 89-141. 



THE ESTABLISHMENT OF NEUTRALITY 97 

tionizing Spanish America. The foreign oflBce, however, 
was somewhat more conservative and more French: "To 
embrace all at once the immense country which stretches 
from New Mexico to Chili to make revolutions, is to be will- 
ing to lose realities, to occupy oneself with Chimeras. With- 
out doubt these immense possessions will not remain always 
under the yoke of Spain, but it does not depend upon us 
to-day to deliver them." 

Permanent national interests, however, survive all changes 
in the form of government. The recovery of Louisiana had 
been constantly in the mind of the French France and 
ever since its loss in 1763. No longer ago than l^*"siana 
1787, indeed, a project for the accomplishment of this end 
had been presented to the French government. With the 
new vigor of the Revolution throbbing in her veins France 
was not likely to forget that she had once had a vast American 
empire, that tens of thousands of French were living in 
Louisiana, to say nothing of Canada. On the contrary, 
the old end was sought with new energy. The recovery of 
Louisiana was among the duties assigned to Genet. 

His means were to be found in the United States: first, 
money, which Hamilton was to give in repayment of the 
French loans; second, an army, which was to Genfit's in- 
consist of the American frontiersmen, spurred structions 
by promise of abundant loot and by that persistent motive, 
the navigation of the Mississippi. The foremost of the 
frontiersmen, George Rogers Clark, anticipated the desires 
of France by offering his services. His letter probably 
reached France before Genet sailed; at any rate, the latter 
counted upon him. 

Even to the French enthusiasts of 1792 it occurred that 
this plan of organizing within the United States, and by the 
resources of the United States, forces to attack Gen6t and the 
Spain, with whom the nation was at peace, ^'"*®^ states 
involved delicate questions. Nor were they unaware that 
a reaction had taken place in this country, for the foreign 



98 AMERICAN DIPLOMACY 

oflBce took care to inform Genet, "The enjoyment of liberty 
has rendered them [the Americans] more calm, they no 
longer treat it as lovers but as husbands." He was to be 
cautious, therefore, in revealing his plans, and the more 
so in view of the possibilities of the future. Was Louisiana 
to become free, French, or part of the United States? 

France was concerned with the future, not of Louisiana 
alone, but of all the rest of the West as well. "Nature," 
France and Genet was instructed, "has traced the future 
the West revolutions of North America." It is divided 

into two parts by the Appalachian Mountains. "The East 
part is peopled, that of the West is almost not. The climates 
of the two countries offer as many differences as are found 
in the interests of the inhabitants. The one direct their 
speculations toward New Orleans, which will be their only 
outlet, the other toward the cities established on the borders 
of the Atlantic sea. . . . This liberty of navigation and the 
independence of Louisiana will draw into this country an 
immense population at the expense of the United States. 
By the progressive growth of this population the schism 
between the Atlantic states and those of the West will be 
inevitable. The Americans know it and do their best to 
delay the epoch." The question might, therefore, he was 
told, be safely left to time. Louisiana would need French 
aid, and the West would ultimately join her; but naturally 
such plans were not for the ears of the American cabinet. 

On April 8, 1793, Genet arrived at Charleston. Welcomed 
with oflBcial sympathy by Governor Moultrie and by popular 
Genet's ar- demonstration, he devoted himself, perhaps 
"^^ more openly than was intended, to the or- 

ganization of operations against the enemies of France. 
Against English commerce he issued a number of privateer- 
ing commissions (of which he was said to have brought 
three hundred) to American vessels manned by Americans; 
and in accordance with a decree of the National Convention, 
he authorized the French consuls in American ports to act 



THE ESTABLISHMENT OF NEUTRALITY 99 

as courts of admiralty for the trial, condemnation, and sale 
of prizes. The business of these courts was not long in be- 
ginning, for unwarned British vessels promptly fell into the 
hands of the French-commissioned American privateers. 
Against Spain, he arranged an expedition of southeastern 
American frontiersmen to attack St. Augustine. To pro- 
mote the cause of Revolution, he also organized a Jacobin 
club. Leaving these affairs at Charleston in the hands of 
the consul, Mangourit, he then started north. In an atmos- 
phere warm with popular sympathy, to which he knew how 
to respond in a manner piquant and provocative, he rode to 
Philadelphia, which he reached May 16, prepared to repeat 
the part which Franklin had sustained in Paris. ^ 

On April 8, the day on which Genet made Charleston, 
the American cabinet, chilled by the news of the proscrip- 
tion of Lafayette and the beheading of Louis Cabinet dis- 
XVI, heard of the war between France and <="ssions 
England. They had five weeks for consultation before 
Genet would reach the capital. The questions which Wash- 
ington presented to the members included the following: 
Whether Genet should be received; whether the republican 
authorities should be recognized as the government of France; 
whether the treaties were still binding, and, if they were, 
whether the guarantee of the French West Indies was still 
obligatory; and exactly what the favors granted to the 
French consuls, war vessels, and privateers involved. The 
primary question, however, was whether a proclamation of 
neutrality should be issued, and, if so, what Jefferson ver- 
form should be given to it. The answers to ^"= Hamilton 
these questions brought out clearly the opposing views of 
Jefferson and Hamilton. Over the validity of the French 
treaties they were particularly at odds. Jay had already, 

^ F. J. Turner, "The Origin of Genet's Projected Attack on Louisiana 
and the Floridas," Amer. Hist, Review, 1898, iii. 650-671; Correspondence of 
Clark and Genet, Amer. Hist. Assoc, Report, 1896, i. 930-1107; Mangourit 
Correspondence, ibid., 1897, pp. 569-679. 



100 AMERICAN DIPLOMACY 

in 1788, maintained that the treaty of alHance terminated 
with the war, that is in 1783, and Hamilton had supported 
him. The latter now held that the treaty had been made 
with the government of Louis XVI, and could not be re- 
garded as binding with the new government of France. 
JefiFerson more correctly maintained that a treaty was the 
action of a nation, not of a government, and therefore sur- 
vived all changes of form. Madison expressed the same idea 
in the words, "A nation, by exercising the right of changing 
the organ of its will, can neither disengage itself from the 
obligations, nor forfeit the benefit of its treaties." A more 
promising lever, however, for releasing us from the uncom- 
fortable obligations resulting from the warmth of our rela- 
tions with France during our own Revolution lay in the 
disregard, by the new French government, of some of its 
corresponding obligations; but the facts were not yet suflS- 
ciently well ascertained to justify more than a protest. On 
neutrality all were agreed; nor did its preservation seem to 
them so difficult as it had at the time of the Nootka Sound 
affair, for they were as yet in ignorance of the territorial am- 
bitions of France.^ In this case it seemed to be a problem of 
the sea alone. 

The final decision lay with Washington, and his first step 
was to issue, on April 19, a proclamation of neutrality. In 
Proclamation deference to Jefferson's wish, however, the 
of neutrality word neutrality was omitted, as it was thought 
that some uncertainty in regard to our position might be of 
advantage. This document, announcing "a conduct friendly 
and impartial towards the belligerent powers," and warning 
all citizens of the United States to avoid hostilities and not 
to trade with the powers at war in any of "those articles 
which are deemed contraband by the modern usage of na- 
tions," has assumed unique position in the development of 
American diplomacy. It really represented not merely an 

> Hamilton, Works (ed. H. C. Lodge, 9 vols.. New York, etc., 1885-86), 
iv. 20-135; Jefferson, Writings (ed. Ford), vi. £19-231. 



THE ESTABLISHMENT OF NEUTRALITY 101 

intention to keep out of the war then in progress, but also 
the national determination to resist the centripetal forces 
of European pohtics and to be left free to work out our na- 
tional development. As the first public announcement of 
this determination, it forms the basis of our most characteris- 
tic diplomatic policy.^ 

It was further resolved to receive Genet, a step which 
ultimately meant recognition of the French republic. This 
instance became a precedent, which the United Recognition of 
States has nearly always followed, for promptly ^^ republic 
recognizing accomplished changes of government in foreign 
countries. It is a policy equally consistent with our pro- 
fessed belief in the right of revolution and with the practical 
common sense which has usually been found in American 
diplomacy. The other questions at issue were left for future 
decision. That of the West India guarantee, which Hamil- 
ton claimed could not hold in case of an offensive war such 
as France was then waging against Great Britain even if the 
treaties were still in force, was soon happily settled by the 
decision of France not to insist upon it. The validity of the 
treaties, and their exact bearing upon the neutral rights and 
duties of the United States, remained topics of controversy 
until Napoleon cut the knot in 1801. 

Genet was probably more incensed than disappointed by 
the proclamation, and he was still further angered by his 
official greeting at Philadelphia, where he was Reception of 
received by Washington in a room decorated *^®°^t 
with medallions of Louis Capet and Marie Antoinette, and 
with a rather frigid bow in place of the fraternal embrace 
and kiss symbolic of the Revolution. Hamilton, moreover, 
courteously explained the impossibility of anticipating in 
any large way the payment of the French loans, and Genet 
was thus left without the financial resources upon which he 
had relied. Nevertheless, he proceeded with his plans. He 

^ Washington, Writings (ed. Ford), xii. 281-282; Moore, American Diplo- 
macy, 33-62. 



102 AMERICAN DIPLOMACY 

forwarded a commission of commander-in-chief to George 
Rogers Clark, and stirred the Kentucky settlements on the 
Ohio and those of Tennessee on the Cumberland with the 
preparation of flat boats and provisions. On June 19, he 
wrote to Lebrun that he was provisioning the West Indies, 
inciting the Canadians, arming Kentucky, and preparing 
an expedition by sea to assist in the attack on New Orleans. 
On July 5 Genet discreetly unfolded his Louisiana project 
to Jefferson. The latter, understanding that the rendezvous 
Jefferson and was to be outside of the United States and 
Genet ^j^^^ Louisiana was to be independent, ex- 

pressed indifference, but warned him that the halter would 
be the fate of the participants in such an expedition. Never- 
theless, he gave a letter to Michaux, who under the guise of 
an explorer was to act as French agent in the West, com- 
mending him to Governor Shelby of Kentucky. 

Meantime Genet was involved with Jefferson in constant 
discussion on questions of neutrality. The treaty with France 
declared that in time of war it should not be 
lawful for citizens of other countries " to fit their 
ships in the ports of either the one or the other of the afore- 
said parties." This certainly forbade the fitting out of 
British war vessels in American ports, but Genet claimed 
that by implication it allowed that privilege to the French. 
This Jefferson denied; indeed, to have held otherwise would 
have meant immediate war with England. Again, the seven- 
teenth article of the treaty of commerce provided that prizes 
should not "be arrested or seized when they come to or enter 
the ports of either party." Genet claimed that this conceded 
complete jurisdiction over prizes to the French consular 
courts, Jefferson, that the United States retained in full the 
rights necessary to enforce her own neutrality regulations 
in case of captures in violation thereof. Jefferson held that 
Americans enlisting in French privateers, were violating our 
declared neutrality and should be punished. On this charge 
Henfield and Singleterry, Americans enlisted on one of 



THE ESTABLISHMENT OF NEUTRALITY 103 

Genet's Charleston privateers, were arrested. Genet pro- 
tested, "The crime laid to their charge, the crime which my 
pen almost refuses to state, is the serving of France, and the 
defending, with her children, the common and glorious cause 
of liberty." 

The inevitable crisis came in July, when V Ambuscade, the 
French frigate which had brought Genet, captured within 
the capes of the Delaware, and hence clearly The Little 
illegally because within American waters, the Democrat 
British vessel Little Sarah, and brought her to Philadelphia. 
The government ordered her surrender, but instead of 
complying. Genet renamed her the Little Democrat and fitted 
her out for a privateer. Brought to task for this by Jefferson, 
he promised that she should not sail until the matter was 
adjusted. Nevertheless, she secretly dropped down the 
river and put to sea, whereupon the government, in a letter 
of August 23, demanded of France the recall of Genet. 

Pending an answer. Genet remained in the country. A 
large portion of the press sympathized with France, and 
attacked the government for its lack of sym- Genet's appeal 
pathy. Particularly Freneau's National Gazette ^° ^^ p«°p^® 
lashed Washington with scorpions, until he doubted whether 
free government and free speech could coexist. Thus spurred. 
Genet resolved to turn from the government to the people, 
and straightway addressed the President in a letter of bom- 
bastic insult which found its way into the newspapers. When 
Congress came together in December the whole correspond- 
ence was submitted to it, and then Genet found that the 
Americans had indeed cooled to the passions of liberty. He 
received some applause but no effective support; even the 
Democratic societies formed upon the model of the Jacobin 
club were unwilling to push to extremes. 

In February his mission ended. His friends, the Girondists 
had fallen; and their successors the Jacobins, Danton and 
Robespierre, were anxious for his head and did not hesitate 
to recaU him. He failed to respond, however, remaining to 



104 AMERICAN DIPLOMACY 

become a citizen of the United States; but he ceased to be 
minister and to figure in the national life. As a balm to the 
Recall of pride of the republic, France asked the cor- 

^^^^^ responding recall of Gouverneur Morris, since 

1792 our minister there. An aristocrat to the finger-tips, 
Morris had on the whole maintained a commendable im- 
partiality during those two dreadful years in Paris; but his 
Recall of sympathies with the king and the nobility 

Morris were well known, and he was not persona grata 

to the French government. The United States, therefore, 
properly acceded to the request and withdrew him. 

On December 31, 1793, Jefferson resigned from the cab- 
inet. The strain of acting as a spokesman of a policy which 
Retirement of camc steadily to be directed more and more 
Jefferson j^y Washington in accordance with Hamilton's 

advice was too great for him, and he was also torn within 
himself between his sympathy for France and his belief in 
neutrality. Genet complained, perhaps not unjustly, that 
he had an ofiicial and a confidential language which widely 
differed. His service in remaining throughout the Genet 
affair, however, cannot be overestimated. The majority 
still sympathized w^ith France, and the fact that the position 
of the government had been expounded by a known French 
sympathizer did much to maintain confidence at home and 
to present to foreign nations an appearance of national 
solidarity. 

Jefferson was succeeded by Edmund Randolph of Virginia, 
who as attorney-general had, on the whole, supported him, 
Randolph and although he was somcwhat aptly described by 
Monroe John Quincy Adams as "a body devoid of 

weight dragged along by the current of events." To succeed 
Morris, Washington appointed James Monroe, another 
friend of Jefferson and an avowed sympathizer with France. 
He had desired to send Jefferson's leading supporter, Madi- 
son, who declined; the pro-French senators had urged Aaron 
Burr; yet Monroe's appointment was regarded as conciliatory 



THE ESTABLISHMENT OF NEUTRALITY 105 

both at home and abroad, and it was hoped that he would 
inaugurate an era of friendly understanding with France 
on the basis of absolute neutrality. 

Meantime the government was developing the details of 
its system. News of the still active western preparations 
reached it, and in March Washington issued a Enforcement 
supplementary proclamation dealing with this °* neutrality 
phase of the situation. Governor Shelby expressed his un- 
willingness to act under a proclamation against "men whom 
he considered as friends and brethren," in behalf of the king 
of Spain, whom he viewed as "an enemy and a tyrrant"; but 
General Wayne, by occupying a strategic position at the 
junction of the Cumberland and the Ohio, succeeded in 
separating Clark's Kentucky and Tennessee forces. Whether 
the government could have held its own had the issue been 
forced, is a question; but at least it showed vigor and purpose. 
In regard to the ocean still greater energy was exhibited. 
The only advantage allowed to the French over the English, 
as a result of the treaties, was that the former were allowed 
to sell prizes in American ports and the latter were not. 
Thus far the enforcement of neutrality had been wholly by 
executive discretion; but there was some criticism that 
this had been stretched too far, and the courts had 
in some instances refused to enforce executive orders. 
The government's position was therefore strengthened 
when, June 5, 1794, Congress passed our first neutrality 
act. 

This law made all persons entering the service of any 
foreign state, or enlisting others in such service, liable to a 
fine of $1,000 and three years' imprisonment; Neutrality law 
it likewise made punishable the fitting out, °^ ^^^* 
or increasing the armament, of any foreign ship or cruiser. 
The government's good faith was further indicated by the 
appropriation of eighty thousand dollars for the purposes 
of enforcement. This act, taken in connection with the 
president's proclamations and the rules adopted by the cab- 



106 AMERICAN DIPLOMACY 

inet on August 3, 1793, "as to the equipment of vessels in 
the ports of the United States by belHgerent powers," was 
important not only in establishing the American policy, but 
also in developing the general principles of international 
law. The American position represented the most advanced 
views of the day in regard to the obligations of neutrals, and 
its practice far exceeded that of any other nation up to that 
time. 

Fortunately, the attitude of France was for the moment 
complaisant. Genet was succeeded by a commission of which 
Fauchet's J- A. J. Fauchet was chief with the title of 

mission minister, its instructions being dated No- 

vember 25, 1793, at the very abyss of French fortunes. 
Hostile armies, insurrections, and famine were pressing in 
upon the new republic. Genet's actions were disavowed, the 
western plans were given up, and American neutrality was 
recognized. France was, in short, coming to an appreciation 
of the fact that American neutrality was one of her strongest 
assets. The chief need was food, and the carrying of provi- 
sions in neutral American vessels was the chief concern of 
the commissioners. Desirable as such provisions were for 
the famine-stricken capital, they were a matter of absolute 
necessity for the West Indian colonies of France. Fauchet 
wrote, February 4, 1795: "You recall. Citizen, that when 
the legation was sent, the Republic was in danger. We saw 
in the United States a point useful for our provisioning which 
caused us not a little alarm, and other political interests were 
entirely subordinated to this powerful consideration." In 
the same letter he wrote: "'The force of things,' said Mr. 
Jefferson, 'delivers the French colonies to us; France enjoys 
the sovereignty, we the profit.' Mr. Jefferson thought 
justly," he went on. "Colonies which America can cast into 
famine in time of war . . . must form close bonds with a 
people which can from fortnight to fortnight satisfy their 
needs. . . . France has to fear for her colonies." To assist 
in this emergency Hamilton did advance some money not yet 



THE ESTABLISHMENT OF NEUTRALITY 107 

due. Monroe was welcomed in France with lively satisfac- 
tion, and for the moment cordiality reigned.^ 

The Genet episode, therefore, passed. It had threatened 
to drag the United States into the general war of Europe 
either directly through sympathetic attraction close of the 
for France, or indirectly by the use of her soil, ep»sode 
citizens, and waters for the military purposes of that country. 
It had threatened to divide the United States into two war- 
ring factions. Instead, it left her resolute in the possession 
of a well-developed policy, and still presenting a united front 
to a divided Europe. 

* F. J. Turner, Correspondence of the French Ministers to the United States, 
1791-1797, Amer. Hist. Assoc, Report, 1903, vol. ii. 



CHAPTER X 
THE JAY TREATY 

While relations with France were thus assuming a quiet 
tone, a new episode was taking shape. In 1793 it seemed that 
Changed con- we might be stampeded into war with England 
ditions \yy q^j, French sympathies; in 1794 it looked 

as if England might force us into war by her aggressions. In 
1793 it was a question of our obligations as neutrals, in 1794 
of our rights as neutrals. 

The trade between France and her West India colonies 
constituted perhaps two-thirds of her sea-borne commerce. 
The French It provided France with her breakfast, — coffee. 
West Indies sugar, and chocolate. In return, France sup- 
plied not only manufactured goods, but also, until the de- 
moralization of agriculture in 1793, grain. The French 
fishermen of Brittany, moreover, caught on the banks of 
Newfoundland the short cod and mackerel which fed the 
slaves of San Domingo, Guadaloupe, and Martinique, while 
the best were taken across the ocean to serve the lenten fare 
of the French at home. Should these branches of trade be 
cut off, it would cause financial loss and inconvenience in 
France, it would cause starvation in the colonies. In fact, 
the Revolution increased the needs of trade, since for a time 
France ceased to be able to feed herself and so became an 
importer of foodstuffs. 

The protection of this trade was the underlying function of 
the French navy. ^Vllile, however, the French fleet was strong 
and efficient, it was less powerful than that of 
England. Except in the war of the American 
Revolution, when it joined forces with Spain, it proved un- 
equal to the task, and direct trade in French vessels was 

108 



THE JAY TREATY 109 

generally in time of war so insecure as to be impracticable. 
To meet this situation, it had been the custom of France in 
such emergencies to open the colonial trade to neutral nations, 
and the Dutch, protected by their English treaties, had en- 
joyed the lion's share. The natural convenience of the Ameri- 
can granaries, however, the hunger of San Domingo, and the 
seamanship and commercial spirit of the American colonists 
often overcame the obstacles of legality and enmity. During 
the Seven Years' war colonial vessels laden with grain often 
dropped down to the vicinity of the French islands, and, by 
collusion with the authorities, allowed themselves to be cap- 
tured, their cargoes being ostensibly seized but actually paid 
for.i 

For these precarious advantages the new war promised to 
substitute a legal and extensive trade. Almost simultane- 
ously with the declaration of hostilities France 
opened her colonial ports. The Dutch no states and the 
longer had their treaties with England; in fact, J^lf^^ ^^^* 
they may scarcely be said to have had a mer- 
chant marine. To the Americans, therefore, possessing as 
they did the world's most important neutral marine, was 
offered the opportunity not only of provisioning the islands, 
but of serving as intermediaries between the colonies and 
the mother country, in addition to supplying the latter with 
provisions. Our merchants were quick to take advantage 
of the situation. They carried our products to the islands, 
exchanged them for island products, and carried the latter to 
France, or brought them back to the United States and then 
took or sent them to France. In 1791 we exported 2,000,000 
pounds of coffee and 1,200,000 pounds of sugar; in 1793, 
34,000,000 pounds of coffee and 18,000,000 pounds of sugar. 
Merchants throve, ship-owners turned their capital with 
unprecedented rapidity, shipyards were pressed to complete 

^ T. L. Stoddard, The French Revolution in San Domingo (Boston, 1914); 
A. T. Mahan, Influence of Sea Poioer tipon the French Revolution and Empire, 
1793-1812 (10th ed., 2 vols., Boston, 1898), vol. i. ch. iv., vol. ii. chs. vii.-viii. 



110 AMERICAN DIPLOMACY 

new vessels, sailmakers and ropemakers were busy; farmers 
opened new fields to supply the demand for grain, salt pork, 
hemp, butter, and other staple articles; fishermen enlarged 
their ventures and their catches to supply what the Bretons 
could no longer furnish. In part, but not mainly, the sym- 
pathy for France was due to the general prosperity which 
resulted from the outbreak of hostilities. 

To England the situation was doubly distasteful, first 
because it was of advantage to France, and second because 
English atti- it served to build up the American merchant 
*"*^® marine, the only one, since the fall of the Dutch, 

which endangered the supremacy of her commercial fleet, 
upon which rested her naval power, her colonies, and her 
wealth. Her na\'y was of little use to her if American vessels, 
in an impenetrable armor of neutrality, could serve all the 
customarj'^ routes of French commerce. It was not thus that 
the first Pitt had made commerce flourish by means of war. 
England had never shown a disposition to stand passive 
before an international opinion, which had been formulated 
by Dutch publicists, was without the backing of effective 
force, and could hardly be dignified by the name of interna- 
tional law. She had rather, as a result of her experience, 
devised a variety of practices which furnished her navy with 
weapons as effective against neutrals as against enemies, and 
she was prepared to use them. 

The first of these was the principle that enemies' goods at 
sea might be seized and confiscated even when carried in 
" Free ships, neutral ships. There was a growing sentiment 
free goods" ' ^^at "free ships" should make "free goods." 
This had been one of the declarations of the Armed Neutral- 
ity, and was embodied in all the commercial treaties of the 
United States. England's practice, however, was the older, 
and she refused to recognize the new idea as having the force 
of law. Neutrals could escape the consequences of her rule 
by becoming the actual owners of the cargo, but to do so 
involved a large capital. Such a purchase, moreover, was 



THE JAY TREATY 111 

looked upon as collusive; hence, being subject to examina- 
tion in the English admiralty courts, the practice involved 
no little risk. 

A second difference in England's policy had reference to 
contraband. It was universally admitted that for a neutral 
to carry war material to a belligerent was law- 
less, and justified the seizure of the material in 
question, the freight, and possibly the ship itself. There was, 
however, disagreement as to what constituted war material. 
The weaker maritime powers thought that the term should 
be narrowly interpreted; England, on the contrary, except 
when bound by treaty, as in the case of Russia, held for a 
broad interpretation. On June 8, 1793, she issued an order 
in council authorizing the seizure of "all ships laden with 
corn, flour, or meal." This measure she defended as being 
not only within her rights but in retaliation for a similar 
French decree of May. The French claimed that their decree 
had been of a special rather than a general character and 
had already been withdrawn when the British order had 
been issued. Failing to secure the withdrawal of the latter, 
the French in July renewed their decree, and provisions be- 
came seizable by both parties. In September, however, the 
British ordered that provisions so seized be paid for and the 
vessels released. The provision trade continued to grow, 
but its fortunes were checkered and its success a gamble. 
It should be observed that while Great Britain and France 
were ostensibly pursuing the same policy, it was, of course, 
the British navy which made the most seizures and won the 
most hatred. 

Another point upon which England maintained a position 

at variance with that of most nations was regarding blockade. 

All nations recognized that a vessel endeavor- -,, , , 
° . . Blockade 

ing to enter a port publicly blockaded incurred 
the risk of capture and confiscation. The continental school 
of international law held that in such cases the blockade must 
be properly announced, and that it must be effectively main- 



112 AMERICAN DIPLOMACY 

tained off the actual port. England upheld what her enemies 
derisively called the "Paper Blockade," to the effect that a 
considerable area of coast might be blockaded by a single 
fleet cruising along it, and that the rule might be enforced 
upon any vessel, anywhere, whose papers indicated that it 
was destined for one of the blockaded harbors. In accord- 
ance with this policy, England in 1793 blockaded numerous 
West Indian ports. 

In addition to these interpretations of general principles, 
England had another rule adapted to meet the special case 
" Rule of of the French West India islands. Announced 

1756" ^y j^j^ order in council of 1756, it is known as 

the "Rule of 1756." Briefly, it meant that, when a nation 
closed its colonies to other nations in time of peace, it had no 
right to open them in time of war, and that, if it did, all such 
commerce was liable to seizure. English instructions of 
November 6, 1793, ordered naval officers to "stay and de- 
tain all ships laden with goods the produce of any colony 
belonging to France, or carrying provisions or other supplies 
for the use of any such colony, and" to "bring the same, with 
their cargoes, to legal adjudication in our courts of ad- 
miralty." This instruction was modified January 8, 1794, 
in such a way as to leave open the trade between the United 
States and unblockaded ports in the West Indies, in articles 
not contraband and not of French ownership. The goods 
thus introduced into the United States might then be shipped 
to unblockaded ports in France. The West Indian trade 
was thus not destroyed, but it was hampered. Moreover, 
one hundred and fifty American vessels had been seized 
under the first instruction, and in the spring of 1794 were 
condemned by the admiralty courts of various British West 
India Islands. 

It is obvious that a British war vessel cruising in the open 
sea had many questions to ask of any merchantman it met. 
The display of a flag was not sufficient answer; in fact, the 
standard of morality concerning the use of national emblems 



THE JAY TREATY 113 

at sea has never been high. In such cases international law 
permits the war vessel to "visit" the merchantman to ex- 
amine her papers. It was unquestionably true « visit " and 
that these papers often failed to tell the whole * search " 
story: the port of destination was frequently given falsely, 
and the captain often took on questionable cargo after the 
clearance papers had been made out. The British, therefore, 
claimed the right to "search" the cargo. This privilege the 
United States and most other powers strenuously denied. 
On this point America was perhaps in worse case than other 
countries, for their merchant vessels often sailed in fleets 
under convoy of a war vessel, which assumed responsibility, 
whereas we had no na\'y, and our commerce was too scat- 
tered to allow such concentration.^ 

Such searches, moreover, brought up another vexed point of 
dispute which was peculiarly our own, and which waxed con- 
stantly in importance until it overshadowed all 

T • 1 1 • • p 1 Impressments 

the rest. It is only by an appreciation oi the 

rock-bottomed belief of Englishmen that everything which 
they held sacred rested upon their fleet, that we can com- 
prehend the spectacle of a people, on the verge of the nine- 
teenth century, submitting to the "press." Every British- 
born subject was bound to serve the nation, if the fleet needed 
men. British war vessels, if short-handed, might stop any 
British vessel and take off such sailors as it needed, leaving 
only the absolute minimum number required for naviga- 
tion. In their searches of American vessels, British officers 
often saw British subjects aiding to build up a merchant 
marine which, if not indeed belligerent, was, they beheved, 
sapping the strength of Great Britain. In such cases they 
took them off. Misled by similarities of language and ap- 
pearance, they sometimes took native Americans. Such in- 
stances were more annoying than serious, for the Americans 
were returned when nationality was proved, — a matter, to 

^ Mahan, Sea Power in its Relations to the War of 1812 (2 vols., Boston, 
1905), i. 42-99. 



114 AMERICAN DIPLOMACY 

be sure, of delay and sometimes of diflSculty, owing to our 
lax methods of registration. More often they took British- 
born subjects who had been naturalized in the United States, 
In such instances the chasm of misunderstanding was un- 
bridgable. England claimed that a man British-born could 
never expatriate himself; whereas the United States held 
that all her citizens, native and naturalized, stood upon the 
same basis and were equally entitled to protection. 

When one remembers that the British naval oflficers were 
spurred in the performance of their duties by the distribu- 
tion among them of the major portion of the 
Prize money i f i • i i i i 

proceeds ot the prizes they captured, and that 

nearly every little British West India island had its own 
prize court, often incompetent and sometimes venal, at least 
to the extent of preferring a condemnation with fees to an 
acquittal without them, one sees that the opportunities for 
friction were countless. Added to all these considerations 
was a maladroit action of the British government, as a result 
of which the Portuguese fleet, which customarily guarded 
the straits of Gibraltar, was in the summer of 1793 with- 
drawn from that duty. Algerian corsairs now dashed out 
into the Atlantic, and by the end of the year ten American 
vessels had fallen into their hands. The final pitch of excite- 
ment was reached when, in March, 1794, came the reports 
of the speech of Lord Dorchester, the governor general of 
Canada and just back from London, to the Canadian 
Indians, predicting war with the United States and bidding 
them prepare. 

As news of one unfriendly act after another reached Amer- 
ica, excitement increased day by day. Congress was in ses- 
United States sion, and in the spring of 1794 came to be di- 
P°^'*^y vided between those who hoped for and those 

who dreaded a war with Great Britain. Fisher Ames, an 
ardent sympathizer with England, wrote, March 26: "The 
English are absolutely madmen. Order in this country is 
endangered by their hostility, no less than by the French 



THE JAY TREATY 115 

friendship. They act, on almost every point, against their 
interests and their real wishes." The House voted to suspend 
commercial intercourse with Great Britain until restitution 
should be made, but by the assistance of the Senate, the 
administration was enabled to carry out its own less bellig- 
erent policy. A general embargo was passed, on the ground 
that the seas were unsafe for American shipping; the first 
steps were taken in the construction of a navy ; and, most im- 
portant of all, a final solemn embassy was sent to Great 
Britain to present the case of the United States and demand 
satisfaction.^ 

For this task the chief justice, John Jay, was chosen. It 
seems to have been felt that, since in Monroe a friendly 

minister had been sent to France, so an Eng- 

1-1 1 • 1111 T^ 1 1 Jay's mission 

lish sympathizer should be sent to England. 

Hamilton was distrusted by the Republicans. Jay had 
more experience than any other American except Adams, 
who was disliked by many Federalists; but even Jay was 
attacked because of his Mississippi proposal of 1786. He was 
now instructed to adjust all the multifarious difficulties 
growing out of the treaty of 1783, particularly the continued 
occupation of the posts by the British. He was to arrange 
a treaty of commerce. He was to secure compensation for 
seizures of American vessels, and agreements concerning 
impressments, blockades, and other points of international 
law. On these latter points he was to accept no settlement 
except along the line of his instructions, which in each case 
laid down the American view of the matter. With this 
heavy burden, and weighted down with the sense of his re- 
sponsibility to prevent a war which he felt to be almost in- 
evitable. Jay set sail for England. 

The "madness" of England was twofold. In so far as it 
related to her principles of maritime conduct, it was basic, 
four-square with her conceptions of national safety. From 

1 Trescot, W. H., The Diplomatic History of the Administrations of Wash- 
ington and Adams (Boston, 1857), chs. ii.-iv. 



116 AMERICAN DIPLOMACY 

these she would not move while a war-ship was afloat, 
Her vexatious conduct in other matters, however, was very 
England's largely connected with her belief that war with 

" madness " ^.j^g United States was sure to come. Equally 
unable with France to understand the American desire for 
isolation, she felt that France would ultimately win our 
alliance. 

Her greatest anxiety was in regard to the West. The 
Northwestern Indians still called upon her for support against 
English appre- the Americans, and threatened to turn on 
hensions Qj.gj^|. Britain if aid was refused. The fur- 

traders were more distressed than before, because of the 
discovery that the source of the Mississippi probably lay 
south of the Lake of the Woods, a circumstance that rendered 
the British right to navigate that river worthless. To meet 
both difficulties, Hammond had in 1792 urged the formation 
of an Indian buffer state to stretch everywhere between 
the United States and Canada, or at least to include the 
country northwest of the Ohio. This means of settlement 
was then rejected by the Americans, even in spite of the 
sting of St. Clair's recent defeat; and now, in 1794, the situa- 
tion was in their favor. Wayne's army, which seemed to the 
Americans a valiant David going into the wilderness to meet 
the Goliath of Indians and British, was known by the latter 
to be larger than the combined British forces in all the posts, 
and seemed to loom menacingly over all British America. 
England's real efforts to bring about peace between the 
Indians and the Americans had caused both to be suspicious; 
and the mistake of a subordinate had furnished the United 
States with a new grievance by the establishment of the fort 
on the Maumee. Finally, Lord Dorchester's speech to the 
Canadian Indians, which had been made public, had roused 
the hope of the Indians on American soil, while hardening 
the American distrust into conviction. In the early summer 
of 1794, therefore, Pitt and his foreign minister. Lord Gren- 
ville, feared that there could be no escape from a clash on 



THE JAY TREATY 117 

the frontier which would bring the United States into the 
war.^ Nor did England want war. From the abyss of No- 
vember, 1793, France was emerging triumphant; her armies 
and Revolution were everywhere advancing. The first 
coalition against her was falling to pieces. 

Jay, therefore, was warmly welcomed when he reached 
England. In estimating his chances of success, one feels 
that he was under some psychological dis- jay and Gren- 
advantage. His mere arrival reassured Lord "^^® 
Grenville, who was at once convinced that a treaty could 
be made, and who even anticipated that the United States, 
recoiling from France, might actually join England. Jay, 
on the other hand, was to the end fearful lest no treaty could 
be arranged and that war would result. Throughout the 
negotiations the fortunes of France rose higher, and in the 
midst of them came news of Wayne's victory over the In- 
dians. Of this international situation Jay, trembling for his 
treaty, seems to have taken no advantage. 

The treaty which was signed on November 19, 1794, was 

most comprehensive. It embodied for the first time two 

principles since then common in American „ ^, ^ , 
1-1 9 rr«i <■ Settlement of 

diplomacy."' The settlement of many vexed the treaty of 

points it left to commissions authorized to 

determine results by judicial or semi-judicial process, and 

it provided for the mutual extradition of persons "charged 

with murder and forgery." The difficulties arising out of the 

treaty of 1783 were compromised, but to the advantage of 

the United States. Great Britain agreed to evacuate the 

posts on or before June 1, 1796. A commission provided to 

determine what river was intended to be described as the 

"St. Croix" on the northeast boundary ultimately accepted 

^ Unpublished thesis on the Jay treaty, by Orpha Leavitt; also Dropmore 
Papers, ii. 

^ For this and all subsequent instances of arbitration, to 1897, see J. B. 
Moore, History and Digest of International Arbitrations, 6 vols., Washington, 
1898 (House Misc. Doc, 53 Cong. 2 sess.. No. 212). In every case this work 
gives an admirable sketch of the origin and settlement of the dispute. 



118 AMERICAN DIPLOMACY 

the river now known by that name, although an additional 
convention of 1798 was required to determine its source. A 
commission was to ascertain the source of the Mississippi, 
which, however, failed in its object. Another commission 
was to adjudicate on the question of the pre-revolutionary 
debts due to British merchants, of which the United States 
was to assume the obligation. Difficulties arising on this 
subject, a new convention became necessary in 1802, and 
ultimately we had to pay something over two million and 
a half dollars. The question of compensation by the United 
States to loyalists was dropped, and also that of indemnity 
by Great Britain for slaves carried away in 1783, a demand 
which we based on the general provision for the mutual 
restoration of property. It is probable that Jay might have 
obtained the latter point, had he forced the issue. ^ 

A commission was also charged with the settlement of 
claims by British merchants because of the failure of the 
g ^ . United States to perform properly her neutral 

violations of duties during 1793, and of those by American 
merchants because of "irregular or illegal cap- 
tures or condemnations" by the British in violation of our 
neutral rights. After many delays, this commission awarded 
American claimants nearly six million dollars and British 
claimants about one hundred and fifty thousand. 

A permanent commercial provision in the treaty allowed 
trade from Vermont to Montreal and Quebec, and freedom 
Commercial of trade with the Indian tribes across the 
clauses border, except in the Hudson Bay region, — 

reciprocal advantages. For a limited time the British East 
Indian trade was opened to Americans. That of the West 
Indies, so long and earnestly desired, was made free to Amer- 
ican vessels of seventy tons' burden, — that is, those that were 
too small to cross the ocean and so were confined to direct 
voyages. This provision, however, was bound up with a 

^ F. A. Ogg, Jay's Treaty and the Slavery Interests of the United States, 
Amer. Hist. Assoc, Report, 1901, i. 273-298. 



THE JAY TREATY 119 

promise on the part of the United States to refrain from 
"carrying any molasses, sugar, cofiFee, cocoa, or cotton in 
American vessels, either from His Majesty's islands or from 
the United States" to any country except the United States, 
a promise that was an utterly inexcusable error on the part 
of Jay, for in the case of cotton it forbade us to export our 
own products in our own vessels. The Senate cut this article 
from the treaty, and trade with the British West Indies re- 
mained subject to temporary regulations. Between England 
herself and the United States commerce and navigation were 
to be for twelve years on the basis of the most favored nation. 

Jay was soon and properly convinced that he could not 
obtain a recognition of the American position on any points 
of international law. In the event of such an international 
emergency he had been instructed to conclude P^'^ctices 
nothing on the subject. He felt, however, that minor modi- 
fications of the English position and definite understandings 
would be advantageous; and he had always been accustomed 
to break instructions. He therefore concluded articles, to 
last twelve years, admitting that provisions might in some 
cases be contraband although they should be paid for, and 
that enemies' goods on neutral vessels might be seized. 
Article xvii. provided that due notice of blockade should 
be given, but said nothing of "paper" blockades; article xxiv. 
forbade "foreign" privateers to sell prizes in the ports of 
either party ; article xxv. admitted British prizes to American 
harbors; but these articles were not to be construed in such 
a way as to violate any previous treaty, the fact being that 
they apparently clashed with our treaties with France. 

Once signed, the Jay treaty began a series of adventures 
that remind one of a Baron Munchausen tale. Not till 
June, 1795, did it reach America. The Senate, Acceptance by 
promptly called in special session, ratified it *® Senate 
June 24, with the exception of the West Indian article. For 
a time it was doubtful what the effect of such partial ratifica- 
tion would be; but in the end England accepted the change, 



120 AMERICAN DIPLOMACY 

and a precedent was established which has many times been 
followed. Meanwhile the treaty itself had been kept secret, 
but a copy was presently furnished to the press by Senator 
Mason of Virginia. Instantly there followed an outburst 
of popular indignation which swept from one end of the coun- 
try to the other, and for a moment united all classes of the 
population. Jay, according to the cheerful custom of the 
day, was burned in eflSgy, and Hamilton, who attempted to 
defend him, was stoned. 

While the popular tumult was raging, Washington was 
at Mount Vernon, deferring his signature. He chafed at 
Randolph and Jay's disregard for his instructions, and was 
Fauchet disturbed over a new British order for the 

seizure of provisions, which, the United States claimed, was 
not warranted by circumstances. Randolph, the secretary of 
state, was urging that he withhold his signature altogether. 
At this juncture the sea once more gave up its prey, this 
time dispatches of Fauchet thrown overboard to avoid cap- 
ture by the British but secured by their sailors. One of these. 
No. 10, which Hammond handed to Hamilton, referred to the 
"precious confessions" of Randolph disclosed in a previous 
letter, No. 6, Despite the subsequent publication of the 
latter, with a letter of explanation by Fauchet and a Vindica- 
tion by Randolph, the exact nature of these precious confes- 
sions remains unproved. Randolph and Fauchet claimed 
that they had to do with internal affairs, the Whiskey Rebel- 
lion in particular. From the internal evidence, however, 
John Quincy Adams concluded, and not without some force, 
that they had reference to the enforcement of neutrality. 
At all events, that there was revealed an amazing condition 
of confidential intercourse between the secretary of state 
and a foreign minister, is undoubted. This circumstance, 
to be sure, appears less remarkable in view of later revela- 
tions of the astonishing intimacy of Hamilton, secretary 
of the treasury, and other Federalists, with the British 
minister; but there is this difiFerence, that Randolph en- 



THE JAY TREATY 121 

deavored to obtain money from Fauchet, a fact which turns 
his indiscretion into moral obhquity.^ 

At any rate, Washington considered that the new situa- 
tion demanded immediate action, and decided to sign the 
treaty in spite of his dissatisfaction with it. w h' st 
With a grimness closely allied with humor, he signs the 
ordered Randolph to complete a protest to 
Great Britain at the seizure of provisions, and, when it was 
completed, showed him the dispatch. Randolph at once re- 
signed, and, after a succession of attempts to bring in some 
notable personage, was replaced by Timothy Pickering, a de- 
cided partisan of England, a man able and honest, but with- 
out poise. 

Not even yet was the treaty safe. It called for the appoint- 
ment of commissioners and the appropriation of money, and 

the latter must come by vote of the House of ^, „ 

•^ _ _ The House ac- 

Representatives. Should the appropriation cepts the 
fail, the treaty could not be executed. All the 
forces hostile to England, favorable to France, and opposed 
to the administration and the treaty, rallied for a final strug- 
gle. The year before Fisher Ames had said of certain resolu- 
tions that they had French stamped on their face, and Parker 
of Virginia had replied that he wished everybody had a stamp 
on his forehead to show whether he was for France or Great 
Britain. Now the feeling was even more intense. The House, 
led by Edward Livingston, demanded that it be furnished 
with copies of the papers in the case. This request Washing- 
ton refused. It could not force him, nor could he force it. 
He could refuse the papers, but it was more important that 
the House could refuse the money. The debate became the 
leading question of the session. On the whole the treaty 
gained support as the commercial classes came to accept 
Washington's view, that, although the treaty was not a 

* Edmund Randolph, Vindication of Mr. Randolph's Resignation, Phila- 
delphia, 1795; M. D. Conway, Omitted Chapters of History, disclosed in the 
Life and Papers of Edmund Randolph, New York, etc., 1888. 



hZ^2 AMERICAN DIPLOMACY 

good one, the existing choice lay not between it and a better 
one, but between it and war. This view was most forcibly ex- 
pressed by Fisher Ames in the greatest speech till then made 
in Congress; and at length, on April 30, 1796, the appropria- 
tion was passed and the treaty became an established fact.^ 

The Jay treaty worked more satisfactorily than was ex- 
pected. Grenville had promised Jay some concessions not 
Working of formally mentioned, and these were fulfilled, 
the treaty 'pj^g admiralty courts in the West Indies were 

reorganized and made respectable. Hammond was replaced 
by Liston, who proved to be somewhat more pleasing 
personally. From 1796, moreover, in spite of the excision 
of the West Indian article from the treaty, that trade 
was thrown open to American vessels under certain lim- 
itations. Best of all was the quieting effect on the north- 
ern frontier. Vermont was relieved by the opening of trade 
to Montreal, the national power was vindicated by the oc- 
cupation of the whole national territory, and with the Jay 
treaty added to Wayne's treaty of 1795 came sixteen years 
of comparative peace with the Indians. On September 8, 
1796, the British consul, Bond, wrote to Lord Grenville that 
the treaty had a "tendency to retain this infant country in a 
state of peace with the most powerful empire in the universe." 

The effect of the Jay treaty was not confined to the rela- 
tions between the United States and Great Britain. The 
European document was observed by all the cabinets of 

opinion Europe with varying emotions, but everywhere 

from the point of view of the obsession that the United States 
must be upon one side or the other. If she had rejected the 
overtures of France and made a treaty with England, it 
must mean that she was to be counted on the side of England. 
Nowhere, was the effect so immediate and pronounced as 
in Spain. ^ 

' S. B. Crandall, Treaties, their Making and Enforcement, New York, 1904. 
* C. C. Pinckney, Thomas Pinckney, Boston, etc., 1895; Schuyler, American 
Diplomacy. 271-281. 



THE JAY TREATY 123 

Important as were the questions at issue with that coun- 
try, no progress had been made in solving them. In part 
this was due to the inadequacy, nearly always Relations with 
characteristic, of our representation at that ^P^° 
court. Carmichael exhibited a nonchalance that excites 
suspicions as to his good intent. His industrious successor. 
Short, was persona non grata. At length, in August, 1794, 
Spain distinctly declared that "at least His Majesty ex- 
pected that the ministers appointed by the United States 
should be persons of such character, distinction, and temper 
as would become a residence near his royal person." 

Meantime Spain had continued her various policies, keep- 
ing on good terms with the Indians and bribing Wilkinson. 
In 1794 Gayoso had hopes of Kentucky, but Spanish poll- 
feared that, if the settlers there knew of the "®^ 
Spanish relations with the Indians, they would, instead of 
continuing their negotiations, "become our most cruel ene- 
mies." Washington wrote in September, 1794: "Spain by a 
similar conduct to that of Great Britain has imposed the 
necessity of sending an envoy extraordinary to her. They 
cooperate; cordial in their hatred, they have agreed to em- 
ploy the Indians against us." 

The envoy selected was Thomas Pinckney, the resident 
minister at London, whose position was perhaps rendered 
slightly invidious in consequence of Jay's mis- Pinckney's 
sion. The attitude of Spain always varied °"ssion 
with the changes in European conditions. By her defeats of 
1794 she had been forced to turn from England to France; 
the treaty of Basle, July 22, 1795, revived the old "family " 
alliance, although the dynastic situation had so tragically 
changed. It was in this new condition that news of the Jay 
treaty found Spain. Her court, believing that it meant 
the alliance of the United States and Great Britain, saw in 
imagination irresistible forces descending upon her frail de- 
fences in Louisiana and attacking the mines of Mexico. 
Although convinced of the necessity of coming to terms, her 



124 AMERICAN DIPLOMACY 

ministers could not shake off their constitutional habits of 
delay, until on October 24, 1795, Pinckney announced his 
immediate departure for London. His bluff was successful, 
and on October 27 the treaty of San Lorenzo was signed. 

As the first treaty between United States and Spain, it 
laid down the general rules of intercourse upon liberal terms. 
Treaty of San In regard to neutral rights it provided that 
Lorenzo provisions should not be contraband of war, 

and that free ships make free goods. Until 1794 the Spanish 
fleet had cooperated with that of Great Britain, and had 
acted upon somewhat the same principles. To settle ques- 
tions arising from this conduct, a commission was arranged 
for, which came to an end in 1800 after having awarded 
over three hundred thousand dollars to American claimants. 
But these questions were of less interest than those relating 
to boundaries and the use of the Mississippi. As to the 
former, Spain accepted the American contention, the thirty- 
first parallel, and agreed to evacuate her posts in the disputed 
region. She opened the navigation of the Mississippi to the 
Americans, and engaged that for three years New Orleans 
was to serve them as a "place of deposit" with the right to 
export their goods therefrom free of duty. "And His Maj- 
esty promises either to continue this permission, if he finds 
during that time that it is not prejudicial to the interests of 
Spain, or if he should not agree to continue it there, he will 
assign to them on another part of the banks of the Mississippi 
an equivalent establishment." 

With the prompt ratification of this favorable treaty, 
Washington could indeed feel that the new government had 

justified itself to the people as their representa- 
Success of the . , „ ,, Vr,, i- i • 

national gov- tive before the world. The diplomatic prob- 
lems that had helped cause the fall of the 
Confederation had all been solved. Commercial treaties 
had been made with Spain and Great Britain. If the latter 
had not permanently opened her West India islands, at any 
rate they were open now. The Indians north and south had 



THE JAY TREATY 125 

been quieted. Outlets had been obtained down the St. 
Lawrence to Montreal and Quebec, and down the Mississippi 
to the Gulf of Mexico. The occupation of the entire national 
territory had been provided for. In addition, the policy of 
national independence from European disputes had been 
effectively laid down, the worst irregularities of belligerent 
interference with our commerce had been done away with, 
and compensation for our losses provided for. If these settle- 
ments were not all to prove permanent, at least they estab- 
lished precedents which we were steadily gaining added 
strength to enforce. For many of these sue- Washington's 
cesses Washington could take personal credit, in^^ence 
over and above that of choosing the men who accomplished 
them. The Indian policy was peculiarly his own. His selec- 
tion from the various alternatives proposed by Hamilton 
and Jefferson for handling the Genet affair made the policy 
adopted essentially his. In view of the conflicting forces 
within him and without, his decision to sign the Jay treaty 
was a great act which proved to be a wise one. Finally in 
his farewell address he gave the policy of neutrality a con- 
secration in the minds of the people which still persists. The 
points on which he might have done better were compara- 
tively minor. He was able to retire in March, 1797, not, 
to be sure, leaving all problems solved, but having settled 
all those, except the opening of the Mediterranean, that 
he was chosen to deal with, and more. 



CHAPTER XI 
WAR AND PEACE WITH FRANCE 

The Jay treaty, which settled so many of our difficulties, 
served to intensify those with France. That country, in 
Permanent addition to a continued insistence on the execu- 

FrenchpoUcies ^^^^ ^f ^j^g treaties of 1778 and 1788, was press- 
ing two lines of policy which animated her diplomacy through- 
out the period of her final struggle with England. One 
was the claim, which gradually took clearer and clearer form, 
that the rights of the neutral were the possession of the bel- 
ligerent. She held that it was the duty of the United States 
to maintain in full her neutral rights against England, that 
the failure to do so constituted practical alliance with Eng- 
land and justified retaliatory disregard of neutral rights by 
France. Her second policy was the attempt to destroy Eng- 
lish trade by attacking her commerce, "to force the English 
to a shameful bankruptcy." John Quincy Adams wrote, 
August 21, 1796: "But the French Government are evi- 
dently making their preparations to put in execution their 
singular plan of war against Britain, the season ensuing. 
That they will succeed in cutting off the communication 
between that island and all the' rest of Europe, is not at all 
impossible." ^ 

The mission of Monroe had been accepted as an indica- 
tion of regard for France. He had been publicly and en- 
Monroe in thusiastically received by the convention in 
France August, 1794, and had pleased it by his re- 
sponse. "America and France," he said in effect, "have 
the same interests and principles, the recollection of common 

^ Volume ii. of his Writings (ed. W. C. Ford, New York, 1913, etc.) throws 
much light on this period. 

126 



WAR AND PEACE WITH FRANCE 127 

dangers and difficulties will cement the union. The United 
States is sincerely attached to the liberty, prosperity, and 
happiness of the French Republic. I know that in perpetuat- 
ing the harmony between the two republics, I shall promote 
the interests of both." Nor had the mission of Jay as ex- 
plained by Monroe caused any alarm, for he was sent to assert 
American neutral rights.^ The French believed that he 
would be unsuccessful and that his mission would result in 
war with England. 

Under these circumstances Monroe had been successful 
in obtaining some useful concessions. In July, 1795, the 
retaliatory decree of France making English French friend- 
goods in American vessels seizable was re- ^^^^^s 
pealed. "It is amidst her triumphs that the Republic loves 
to give this striking mark of its fidelity. Victorious France 
knows no other concern than that of justice; no other diplo- 
matic language than that of truth." P. A. Adet, who arrived 
in America in June, 1795, to replace Fauchet, had received 
most amicable instructions. Monroe had even encouraged 
France to hope for a loan from the United States, and had 
urged it on our government alleging that France was fighting 
our battles. 

The news of the signature of the Jay treaty alarmed 
France, and the Committee of Public Safety turned to 
Monroe for information as to its details; but The Jay treaty 
since, as the result of a policy rather difficult ^° France 
to account for, he had been left uninformed by Jay and by 
the United States government, he could give only vague as- 
surances that the compact was not inconsistent with our 
obligations to France. Confident rumor, however, speedily 
detailed its terms, and a copy of the treaty itself, sent by 
Adet, reached France in the summer of 1795. Monroe and 
the French leaders equally were stunned. Instead of vindi- 
cating the status of neutrality laid down in our treaties with 

' James Monroe, A View of the Conduct of the Executive in the Foreign Af' 
fairs of the United States, Philadelphia, 1797. 



128 AMERICAN DIPLOMACY 

France, it accepted a totally different status, permitting to 
England practices against which we had protested in the 
case of France. The English had just touched France to the 
quick by their second order for the seizure of provisions as 
contraband, and it was seen that they were justified by the 
new treaty. Monroe was unable to meet the situation. In 
February, 1796, France declared her alliance with the United 
States at an end. On July 2, 1796, a decree of the French 
executive Directory announced that France would treat 
neutrals as England did, and actually went further by de- 
claring all goods destined for England contraband. In No- 
vember, Adet announced to the American government that 
he had been ordered to terminate his mission. 

On August 22, 1796, the American government had re- 
called Monroe and appointed in his place Charles Cotes- 
Recall of worth Pinckney. Monroe's recall was due 
Monroe partly to his failure to press American claims 
in all cases to the satisfaction of the government; particularly 
the claim for compensation for captures under the decrees 
ordering the seizure of English goods in American vessels and 
making provisions contraband, both of them in violation of 
the treaty of 1778, but defended by France on the basis of 
retaliation. Still more was his recall due to the general tone 
of his correspondence, which constituted a protest against the 
policy of his own country and a defence of France. It may 
be said, however, that he did secure more concessions from 
France than Jay could obtain from England, and that he 
had been instructed to cultivate French friendship. He was 
undoubtedly indiscreet, but part of the blame must be laid 
to the policy of sending in such a delicate crisis a minister 
known to be out of touch with his superiors. The most 
serious fault of Monroe was his conduct after he became ac- 
quainted with the details of Jay's treaty, and still more after 
his own recall. In close touch with the French leaders, 
he impressed upon them the difference, which they were 
only too prone to believe, between the government of the 



WAR AND PEACE WITH FRANCE 129 

United States and the people. He acknowledged that the 
government was hostile to France, but he urged them to wait 
for justice until after the next presidential election, which 
he was sure would bring Jefferson into the presidency. He 
assisted in destroying that impression of national solidarity 
for which Washington had labored so hard, and which Jeffer- 
son himself had confirmed by his correspondence with Genet. 

France and Mom-oe were not without some justification 
for believing that the existing American government was 
not only anti-French but to some degree pro- p^ .£ v u 
English. Washington, indeed, remained im- policy in the 
partially American, but he had been forced to 
give up his vision of an administration comprehending all 
parties. His assistants were Federalists, and they sympa- 
thized with England. In 1796 Thomas Pinckney was re- 
placed at London by an ardent English partisan, Rufus King. 
In 1797 John Quincy Adams was commissioned to reframe 
our treaties with Prussia and Sweden, of which the first had 
expired and the other was about to expire. He was instructed 
by Pickering to leave out the former provisions regarding 
free ships, free goods. "It is a principle," wrote Pickering, 
"that the United States have adopted in all their treaties 
(except that with Great Britain), and which they sincerely 
desire might become universal: but treaties formed for this 
object they find to be of little or no avail, because the prin- 
ciple is not universally admitted among the maritime na- 
tions." He was also to enlarge the definition of contraband. 
Against these changes in the American policy, showing so 
marked a leaning to the English practice, Adams vigorously 
protested, but his instructions remained unchanged. Al- 
though such details were not generally known, the atmos- 
phere of the administration became increasingly hostile to 
France. 

Under these circumstances the French government took 
occasion to show its friendliness for Monroe upon his with- 
drawal as minister. It refused to receive his successor. 



130 AMERICAN DIPLOMACY 

Pinckney, and on February 3, 1797, ordered him to leave the 

country. Although it withdrew Adet from his mission, it al- 

, lowed him to remain in the United States in the 
France and , , , , 

the •lection of hope that he might influence the presidential 
election of 1796. Adet announced his with- 
drawal in a letter which he published in the press, explaining 
it not as "a rupture between France and the United States, 
but as a mark of just discontent, which was to last until the 
government of the United States returned to sentiments and 
to measures more conformable to the interests of the alliance; 
and to the sworn friendship between the two nations." His 
interference was perhaps not without some weight, but it 
did not secure the election of Jefferson. John Adams was 
chosen to the presidency, and the officials as well as the 
policy of the old administration bade fair to be continued 
for at least four years more.^ 

Hopeless of American friendship, France turned with 
more energy toward other plans. In February, 1795, Fauchet 
France and bad in a long letter advised that the only way 
Louisiana ^^ offsetting the effects of the Jay treaty, of 

which he did not then know the details, was by the acquisi- 
tion of Louisiana. That colony could feed the islands and 
so wrench them free from their dependence on the United 
States. This familiar policy France determined to pursue. 
With Spain as an ally, cession and not capture must be the 
method. Accordingly, the French commissioners for the 
treaty of Basle were instructed, "The restitution of Louisiana 
is of all the conditions we have proposed the one to which 
we attach the greatest importance." Failing at that time, 
France instructed General Pcrignon, her ambassador at 
Madrid, March 16, 1796, to urge the point: "Our possession 
of Louisiana would give us the means to offset the marked 
predilection of the Federal government for our enemy and 
keep it within the line of duty by the fear of a dismember- 
ment, we might cause." 

» McMaster, People of the United States, ii. 209-416, 429-476. 



WAR AND PEACE WITH FRANCE 131 

This dismemberment of the United States, so clearly fore- 
shadowed in the instructions to Genet, continued to haunt 
the minds of the French ministers. Adet, New French 
while striving to excite the French Canadians i°t"gues 
against England,^ sent his ablest agent, General Collot, into 
the American West. He was to nourish sentiments of dissen- 
sion among the leaders "by observing that the interests 
of the eastern and western parts of the United States were 
in collision, that the period was not distant when a separation 
must take place, and the range of mountains on this side of 
the Ohio was the natural boundary of the new government, 
and that in the event of separation the western people ought 
to look to France as their natural ally and protector." On 
July 15, 1797, Talleyrand became French minister of foreign 
affairs. Just returned from banishment in the United States, 
he had recently read before the Institute papers on "The 
Commercial Relations of the United States" and "The 
Colonial Interests of France." Although primarily con- 
cerned at the moment with Bonaparte's plan to divert at- 
tention to Africa, he maintained that the eastern part of the 
United States was irrevocably bound to England by lan- 
guage, habits, and trade, but that the country beyond the 
mountains would in time separate and need France.^ 

The American government only suspected these western 
designs; but the official insult involved in the treatment of 
Pinckney was patent, and the constant seiz- Adams's com- 
ure and condemnation of American vessels un- mission to 
der successive decrees, unjustifiable and often 
contradictory, demanded attention. As experiments with 
Monroe, a Republican, and Pinckney, a Federalist, had 
proved unsatisfactory, Adams, with general approval, de- 
cided to send a joint commission of three, — to Pinckney, 

1 Canadian Archives, 1891, pp. 63-79; 1894. p. 527. 

* A. Cans, "Les idees de Talleyrand sur la politique coloniale de la France 
au lendemain de la Revolution," Revue d'Histoire Moderne, 1900, ii. 58-63; 
F. J. Turner, "The Policy of France toward the Mississippi Valley," Amer. 
Hist. Review, 1905, x. 249-279. 



132 AMERICAN DIPLOMACY 

were added John Marshall, a Federalist, and Elbridge Gerry, 

a Republican. On the day on which Talleyrand took oflSce 

they received their instructions. 

Arriving in Paris at the very crest of the Revolution, 

they found themselves confronting a situation unparalleled 

since the last century of the Roman republic. 
French revolu- ^ . , ,-, 111 

tionary diplo- Tnumphant France was surrounded by na- 

^^^^ tions buying peace; the dazzling private ex- 

penditure which betokened the coming empire tempted pub- 
lic oflBcials to demand private douceurs for the favor of their 
nod. The world seemed melting into new shapes at the 
whim of those who from moment to moment dominated 
Paris. America was a minor consideration; she was treated 
as were other powers. Even the astute Talleyrand, master 
of finesse, could see the need of no more subtile weapon 
than the threat, to be parried by the bribe. 

He refused to receive the commissioners until redress of 
grievances was made and the President's message of May 16, 
Secret negotia- 1797, dealing with the French situation, atoned 
*^°°^ for. Privately, however, he met them, and 

introduced them to certain individuals as possessing his con- 
fidence. These persons explained that as a preliminary to 
negotiation France expected the United States to buy from 
her, at par, certain Dutch bonds worth about fifty cents 
on tlie dollar, — two satellite republics were to combine to 
feed the great one. To set the whole in motion, a million 
francs, it was hinted, would be expected by the proper of- 
ficials. This proposal was not so likely to surprise a trained 
diplomat at that time as now, if indeed anything in the 
Paris of 1798 could have surprised a trained diplomat. It 
was in effect a renewal in a different form of the loan prop- 
osition of 1794 so warmly endorsed by Monroe. We had 
not hesitated to buy peace from the Barbary pirates, and 
there was really no need of being more scrupulous about 
corrupting Talleyrand's morals than theirs. Pitt himself 
was at this very time seriously considering the purchase of 



WAR AND PEACE WITH FRANCE 133 

peace on similar, but dearer, terms. ^ I believe, however, 
that Americans remain glad that their commissioners were 
shocked, and that Pinckney replied, "No! no! no! not a 
sixpence!" Pinckney and Marshall at once broke off nego- 
tiations. Gerry lingered for three months more, but with- 
out being trapped into any concessions by Talleyrand; then 
he too left France, in August, 1798. 

Meanwhile the commissioners' dispatches had been re- 
ceived in America. On March 19 Adams announced that 
they rendered peace no longer possible. In _ v y z 
April they were published, the letters X, Y and con-espond- 
Z being used to designate the intermediaries; 
and their contents convinced a large majority of Americans 
that Adams was right. Congress authorized an increase in 
army and navy, and on June 21 Adams was widely applauded 
for his announcement that he would "never send another 
minister to France without assurances that he will [would] 
be received, respected, and honored as the representative of 
a great, free, powerful, and independent nation." 

Although peace was at an end, war was not begun. It was 
hoped that we might hang between the two. On July 7 
Adams declared our treaties with France sus- American re- 
pended. An act of June 12 had already sus- p"^^^ 
pended all commercial intercourse with her, and on June 15 
merchant vessels were authorized to arm and to defend 
themselves against search, seizure, or interference by French 
vessels. On July 8 authority was given to naval vessels to 
capture any armed French vessels, and the president was 
empowered to commission privateers to do the same. As 
practically all French merchantmen sailed armed, this licence 
offered a wide field. Three hundred and sixty -five privateers 
were commissioned, France lost ninety ships, and several 
naval duels were fought.- 

^ Adams, Influence of Grenville on Pitt's Foreign Policy, 67. 

2 G. W. Allen, Our Naval War vnth France, Boston, etc., 1909; G. N. 
Tricoche, "Une page peu connue de Fhistoire de France, la guerre franco- 
americaine (1798-1801)," Revue Historique, 1904, Ixxxv. 288-Sd99. 



13i AMERICAN DIPLOMACY 

In order to avoid the losses to American merchants which 
would come from a closing of the trade with the West Indies, 
West Indian Adams, June 26, 1799, declared suspended the 
*^*^® suspension of French commerce in the case of 

certain ports of San Domingo. That colony was then under 
the control of Toussaint L'Ouverture, and its political con- 
nection with France was but slight. It is probable, also, 
that American merchants even continued to supply the 
more loyal islands of Guadaloupe and Martinique by means 
of collusive captures. Hostilities therefore brought little 
inconvenience to the United States, and, as for danger, Adams 
said that he no more expected to see a French army in 
America, than in heaven.^ 

Although we did not consider ourselves at war with France, 
we were fighting her. The policy of isolation had been in 
The Blount part deviated from. Were we going to give it 
conspiracy ^p ^yholly by becoming the ally of England, 

and so be enmeshed in the general European conflict.' There 
were many circumstances that rendered such an event prob- 
able and many men who desired it. The new British minis- 
ter, Liston, proved pleasing. He won confidence at once, 
in 1797, by helping to disclose a project of William Blount, 
senator from Tennessee, for a joint expedition of frontiers- 
men and the British fleet to seize Louisiana and put it under 
the control of Great Britain. Impeached by the House of 
Representatives, Blount resigned to escape conviction, and 
was promptly elected governor of his state; his plan serves 
to show how minds in the West were turning. Since Spain 
was loath to live up to the treaty of 1795, it was becoming 
doubtful whether that settlement would prove permanent; 
Great Britain, therefore, in becoming the enemy of Spain, 
became the natural friend of the frontiersman. 

For similar reasons Miranda left France, now the ally of 
Spain, and sought England, where in 1797 he was once more 
deep in the confidence of Pitt. His plans resembled those 
» Hildreth, United States, v. 267-270. 



WAR AND PEACE WITH FRANCE 135 

of 1790, except that the United States had swum into his ken. 
He would now give the Floridas and New Orleans to that 
country, "the Mississippi being in every re- Miranda's 
spect the best and most solid barrier that one ^^^ 
can establish between the two great nations which occupy 
the American continent." England was to have Porto Rico 
and other islands. To all these nations — England, the United 
States, and Spanish America — the use of the isthmuses of 
Panama and Nicaragua was to be guaranteed. The instru- 
ments to secure all this were to be the United States army, 
the English navy, and Spanish- American discontent.^ 

These plans were accepted with enthusiasm by Rufus 
King, who communicated them to Pickering, our secretary 
of state, and to Hamilton, who under Washing- Federalists' 
ton commanded the new army. The plan ^'^^ ^°^ ^" 
pleased Hamilton. He wrote to Senator Gunn of Georgia, 
December 22, 1798: "This, you perceive, looks to offensive 
operations. If we are to engage in war, our game will be 
to attack where we can. France is not to be considered as 
separated from her ally. Tempting objects will be within 
our grasp." King wrote, October 20, 1798, "Things are 
here, as we could desire: there will be precisely such a co- 
operation as we wish the moment we are ready;" and again, 
on January 21, 1799: "For God's sake, attend to the very 
interesting subject treated of in my ciphered dispatches to 
the Secretary of State of the 10th, 18th, & 19th instant. 
Connect it, as it should be, with the main object, the time 
to accomplish which has arrived. Without superstition. 
Providence seems to have prepared the way, and to have 
pointed out the instruments of its will. Our children will 
reproach us if we neglect our duty, and humanity will escape 
many scourges if we act with wisdom and decision." On 
March 22 he wrote less hopefully to the secretary of state, 
" one is tired with beholding, and with endeavoring in vain to 
account for the blindness that even yet prevents an honest 
^ Robertson, Miranda, Amer. Hist. Assoc., Report, 1907, i. 189-539. 



136 AMERICAN DIPLOMACY 

and general confederacy against the overbearing Power of 
France." On March 12, 1799, Dr. Edward Stevens was ap- 
pointed consul-general to San Domingo, to enter into rela- 
tions with Toussaint L'Ouverture, and to cooperate with the 
English consul in encouraging the independence of the island. 
It is significant that Hamilton was at this time in touch with 
Wilkinson.^ 

Whatever advantages this plan might have secured to 
the United States, it certainly involved the abandon- 
, ment of the policy of neutrality. It involved 
mission for also the risk of internal disunion. How widely 
^^^"^^ apart the opposing factions in the nation were 

already leaning is indicated by the mission of Dr. Logan, a 
Philadelphia Quaker, who went to France in 1798 to treat 
for peace upon his own account. Instead of passports he 
carried letters from Jefferson and from Thomas McKean, 
chief justice of Pennsylvania. In 1799 such private missions 
were prohibited by law, but his action is symptomatic of 
the way in which a war with France would have divided the 
nation. 

Talleyrand had intended by his bullying to produce, not 

war, but money. American hostility was inconvenient to 

„ „ J , France; actual war and alliance with England 
Talleyrand of- . . 

fers to nego- on the part of the United States might be dan- 
gerous to her. Moreover, the French expedition 
to Egypt had proved disappointing, and in his brain were re- 
volving American projects which required, for the time, peace 
with the United States. On September 28, 1798, therefore, 
he informed William Vans Murray, our minister at The Hague, 
that any minister whom the United States might send would 

* George Gibbs, Memoirs of the Administrations of Washington and John 
Adams, 2 vols.. New York, 1846; J. Q. and C. F. Adams, John Adams, i. 
516 ff.; John Adams, Works, vols, iii., viii., app.; C. R. King, Life and Corre- 
spondence of Riifus King (6 vols., New York, 1894-1900), vol. ii.; Hamilton, 
Works (ed. Lodge), vol. viii. (ed. Hamilton), vol. v.; "Letters of Toussaint 
Louverture and of Edward Stevens, 1798-1800," Amer. Hist. Review, 1910, 
xvi. 64-101. 



WAR AND PEACE WITH FRANCE 137 

be received with the respect due to the "representative of a 
free, independent, and powerful nation." This letter was 
at once seized upon by Adams as complying with the condi- 
tions that he had laid down in his message of June 21, His 
sturdy and persistent Americanism had accepted hostility, 
not from preference, but as necessary to the national honor 
and prestige. He was anxious to return to neutrality and 
diplomatic isolation, and on February 18, 1799, he nomi- 
nated Murray to the Senate, as minister to France. 

Of all personal decisions in American diplomacy, this 
was the most important, unless it be that Jay was justified 

in his suspicions of Vergennes in 1782 and . , 

1/1,1 <. 1 • Adams accepts 

so denected the course oi history at that the opportu- 

point. Of the wisdom and justice of Adams's °^ ^^^^^ 

course there can be no doubt. He could, however, be 
counted upon to be as disagreeable as he was right. He 
sent in the nomination without consulting even his secre- 
tary of state. For this unusual discourtesy it is, how- 
ever, possible that there was some excuse. Had the prop- 
osition been submitted to his cabinet, dominated as it was 
by Hamilton, it would undoubtedly have been rejected and 
further action would have been difficult. Once Talleyrand's 
offer became public, however, an overwhelming public opin- 
ion, all Republicans and the moderate Federalists, demanded 
its acceptance. Pickering, Hamilton, and their associates 
were aghast, but did not dare oppose the mission. Yet they 
succeeded in substituting for a minister a commission, com- 
prising, in addition to Murray, the chief justice Oliver Ells- 
worth, and Patrick Henry, upon whose refusal Governor 
Davie of North Carolina was substituted. Concerning the 
instructions to this commission, Pinckney wrote to King, 
March 12, 1799: "These terms are what we have a clear 
right to, and our interest and honor oblige us to insist on. 
Yet I very much doubt whether France will yield them. I 
am morally sure she will not; and this has put us all much 
at our ease." 



138 AMERICAN DIPLOMACY 

In spite of this confidence, however, Adams had personally 
to intervene to secure the departure of the envoys. Pickering 
Cabinet dis- did not choose to take the course of resignation, 
sensions which his difference of purpose and his personal 

relations with Adams made obvious. He clung to his position 
until May 12, 1800, when Adams removed him. With him 
went also Hamilton's influence over diplomacy, which since 
1789 had largely controlled details. Yet none of the great 
decisions or policies of the period had been Hamilton's, 
although in some such cases his view had coincided with 
that followed and had often helped to shape it. In this final 
clash, however brilliant and fascinating were his ideas and 
however great his capacity to realize them, it cannot be 
doubted that Adams, bred of the soil, stood for the desires 
John Marshall and best interests of his country, Pickering 
secretary ^^^ replaced by John Marshall, whose term 

was too short and quiet to test his diplomatic abilities. 

In Paris the negotiations, having the good will of Talley- 
rand and of the rising Bonaparte, progressed rapidly. On 
Convention of September 30, 1800, a convention was con- 
eluded. This agreement was generally satis- 
factory on points relating to navigation. It laid down the 
French view, which was also the American, with regard 
to free ships making free goods, and also with regard to con- 
traband. In one point, however, we were obliged to accept 
the French view, as Jay had accepted the English, — namely, 
the provision that neutral goods on enemies' vessels might 
be seized. The chief diflSculty lay in the American demand 
that indemnity be paid for illegal condemnations by the 
French, on which were based nearly twenty-three hundred 
sound claims, and the French demand for the execution of 
the treaties of 1778 and 1788. The commissioners fuially 
decided to leave these questions for future negotiation "at 
a convenient time," the treaties meanwhile to be inoper- 
ative. This proposal the United States Senate amended by 
the provision that the convention should remain in force 



WAR AND PEACE WITH FRANCE 139 

for eight years. Bonaparte, by this time Napoleon and 
consul, with his usual clear headedness accepted this amend- 
ment, "provided that by this retrenchment the two States 
renounce the respective pretensions which are the object of 
the said article." 

Thus were disposed of forever the treaties which consti- 
tuted our first "entangling alliance." The advantage that 
accrued to the nation is obvious. The justice v a r 
of thus exchanging private claims for national " French trea- 
gain has since then many times engaged the 
attention of Congress, but these particular "French Spolia- 
tion Claims" became henceforth a domestic problem. 

The end thus arrived at is to be attributed not only to 
Adams's decision to make peace, but to his willingness, pre- 
viously shown, to make war. The brief brush ^ . . , 
with France had, moreover, brought other " French spoli- 
results. Fearing some such scheme as Miranda 
was elaborating, Spain at length, and reluctantly, in March, 
1798, evacuated her posts between the Yazoo and the thirty- 
first parallel, and the United States for the first time actually 
possessed in full the boundaries awarded her by the peace of 
1783. 

To the achievements noted at the close of Washington's 
administration, therefore, the Adams administration added 
that of meeting the most acute crisis that had 
yet confronted the nation, and of emerging eralist period' 
from it with the fundamental policy of neu- 
trality still intact, and relieved from treaty complications. 
It left the affairs of the nation in a condition superficially 
satisfactory and actually strong. 



CHAPTER XII 

THE LOUISIANA PURCHASE 

The succession of Jefferson to the presidency made less im- 
mediate change in the current of American diplomacy than 
A change of was expected, much less than in domestic af- 
regime fairs. The formal etiquette with which Wash- 

ington had surrounded himself was modified and its neg- 
lect caused some friction with the foreign ministers at Wash- 
ington; but the essential practice of having all governmental 
intercourse with them pass through the hands of the secre- 
tary of state was retained. Jefferson, moreover, was a gen- 
tleman and of cosmopolitan experience; and on the whole the 
administration was well-mannered. Jefferson had long held 
that ministers should not be retained abroad more than six 
or eight years, for fear that they would cease to be true repre- 
sentatives of Americanism, a principle for which there was 
much to be said in those days, when foreign politics tended 
so to engage American sympathies and antipathies and com- 
munication was so scant. Charles Pinckney was therefore 
nominated minister at Madrid, "vice David Humphreys, 
recalled on account of long absence from the United States," 
and Robert Livingston was substituted for Short, in France, 
for the same reason ; but comparatively little more was heard 
of the practice.^ In the interests of economy the missions to 
Prussia, Holland, and Portugal were discontinued, a step 
which John Quincy Adams considered a mistake, as it left 
us at the mercy of the two great belligerent powers by putting 
us out of touch with our natural friends, the neutral maritime 
nations; but the neutral nations were so weak that the loss 
cannot be considered great. Most of the men appointed by 

* C. R. Fish, The Civil Service and the Patronage (New York, etc., 1905), 
88. 

140 



THE LOUISIANA PURCHASE 141 

JeflFerson were of ability and training, though his leading 
agent, Monroe, seems to have been framed for other tasks 
than diplomacy. Jefferson's most important advisers were 
James Madison, secretary of state, and Albert Gallatin, 
secretary of the treasury; but his own power, ability, and 
experience served to give him control.^ 

The first question which confronted the administration 
resulted from a tangle in that particular thread of diplomacy 
which the Federalists had failed to unravel. Mediterranean 
Our treaties with the Barbary states were not ^ 
highly regarded by those powers. The Dey of Algiers had 
objected to making one. "If I were to make peace with 
every body," said he, "what should I do with my corsairs .^^ 
What should I do with my soldiers? They would take off 
my head for the want of other prizes, not being able to live 
upon their miserable allowance." Nor did the treaty once 
made lie very heavily upon him; it seemed in fact to offer 
him some amusement. In 1800 Captain Bainbridge, arriv- 
ing at Algiers with the usual tribute, was ordered to carry 
dispatches to Constantinople. "You pay me tribute," ex- 
plained the Dey, "by which you become my slaves, and there- 
fore I have a right to order you as I think proper." Jefferson 
had long been familiar with the situation, and had always 
opposed the policy of tribute. Now he proposed to use force 
to exact respect. Inconsistent as this policy seems to be 
with his general belief in the supremacy of reason, it was 
probably based upon a still more fundamental sense of 
honor, and a somewhat emotional reaction from so barbaric 
an anachronism as the Barbary coast. At any rate, he sent 
a squadron to the Mediterranean, where for several years 
American ships and men, captains and consuls, performed 
their parts in romantic adventures which smack of the 

^Jefiferson, Writings, ed. Ford, 10 vols.; James Madison, Writings, ed. 
Gaillard Hunt, 9 vols.. New York, 1900-1910; Albert Gallatin, Writings, ed. 
Henry Adams, 3 vols., Philadelphia, 1879; James Monroe, Writings, ed. 
S. M. HamUton. 9 vols.. New York, etc., 1898-1903. 



142 AMERICAN DIPLOMACY 

Arabian Nights rather than of the nineteenth century. Inde- 
pendent of home support, as only sailing-vessels can be, they 
so successfully impressed the rulers of the several states that 
by 1805 the sea was comparatively safe for American traders.^ 

Even at JeflPerson's inauguration the great event of his ad- 
ministration was taking shape behind carefully closed doors. 
There was no novelty in what was being 
rand and Na- planned; except what lay in the ability of the 
actors and the strength of the forces at their 
command. Talleyrand and Napoleon had definitely taken 
up the plans for dominating the Mississippi valley, and 
through it the western world, with which so many men had 
been playing now for fifty years. At their back they liad the 
virility and enthusiasm of revolutionary France, now disci- 
plined into military effectiveness; they had the defeated and 
demoralized, but still powerful, French navy.^ 

The first step was to get Louisiana, to get it quickly and 

undamaged. Talleyrand wrote to his representative at 

_ . , Madrid in the summer of 1798: "The Court of 
Cession of 

Louisiana to Madrid, ever blind to its own interests, and 
never docile to the lessons of experience, has 
again recently adopted a measure which cannot fail to pro- 
duce the worst effects upon its political existence and on the 
preservation of its colonies. The United States has been put 
in possession of the forts situated along the Mississippi, 
which the Spaniards had occupied as posts essential to arrest 
the progress of the Americans in those countries." The 
Americans, he said, must be shut up within "the limits 
which nature seems to have traced for them," — the same 
limits, of course, which Rayncval had traced for d'Aranda 
and Jay in 1782. Spain, continued Talleyrand, should 
"yield a small part of her immense domain to preserve the 

^ G. W. Allen, Our Navy and the Barbary Corsairs, Boston, etc., 1905. 

^ Giistav Roloff, Die Kolonialpolitik Napoleons I, Munich, etc., 1899; 
Henry Ad;ims, "Napoleon ler et Saint Domingue," Revue Historique, 1884, 
xxiv. 92-130. 



THE LOUISIANA PURCHASE 143 

rest." Let Spain cede the Floridas and Louisiana to France, 
"and from that moment the power of the United States is 
bounded by the limits which it may suit the interests and 
tranquillity of France and Spain to assign her." Spain still 
resisted the inevitable, but at length on October 1, 1800, the 
treaty of San Ildefonso was signed, " retroceding " Louisiana 
to France in exchange for some Italian provinces. With a 
persistence worthy of a more hopeful cause Spain still clung 
to the Floridas.^ 

Twenty-four hours before, the convention bringing about 
the necessary truce with the United States had been signed. 
There remained necessary, peace with Great Reduction of 
Britain to free the ocean for French operations. ^^ Domingo 
On October 1, 1801, preliminary articles were signed with 
that country, and on March 27, 1802, the peace of Amiens 
was concluded. One detail was still incomplete, but it seemed 
to offer small difficulty. The key to the new colonial empire 
of France must be the island of San Domingo, still dominated 
by the negro Toussaint L'Ouverture, whose loyalty to France 
was insufficient for the purposes in view. In January, 1802, 
Napoleon's brother-in-law, Leclerc, with ten thousand men 
and a large fleet, arrived off the island to restore it to its 
dependence. His military successes paved the way for the 
reestablishment of slavery, and Toussaint L'Ouverture was 
sent prisoner to France. Napoleon then prepared his expedi- 
tion to Louisiana, and drew up instructions to General Victor, 
who was to command it. 

The central feature of this plan, the cession of Louisiana, 
was still a secret; Talleyrand even denied it, yet rumor 
spread. In April, 1801, John Quincy Adams ^j^^ ^^^^ 
had heard of it at Berlin. In 1802 Godoy, reaches 

A.iii6ric& 

"Prince of the Peace " and the leading figure in 

Spain, being pressed by France for the Floridas, seems to 

have allowed a copy of the treaty to fall into our hands. In 

1 See F. L. Riley, Spanish Policy in Mississippi after the Treaty of San 
Lorenzo, Amer. Hist. Assoc, Report. 1897, 175-192. 



144 AMERICAN DIPLOMACY 

November, 1802, a premonition was given of what might 
happen should the transfer take place. The Spanish intend- 
ant at New Orleans, at French instigation, as it was believed, 
forbade the Americans the use of that city as a place of de- 
posit, and refused to designate another. The first action was 
in accordance with our treaty with Spain, more than the 
three years specified having elapsed ; but the refusal to assign 
a new port was a violation of that treaty. It again clogged 
the Mississippi and stirred all the forces of the restless West.^ 

Fortunately, Jefferson was familiar with every factor of 
this new combination of long-existing conditions. He flour- 
JefiFerson ished before France the danger of an alliance 

threatens between the United States and England. In 

a letter intended to be read by the French leaders he wrote: 
"The day that France takes possession of New Orleans fixes 
the sentence which is to restrain her forever within her low 
water mark. It seals the union of two nations, which in 
conjunction can maintain exclusive possession of the ocean. 
From that moment we must marry ourselves to the British 
fleet and nation." He showed marked favoritism to the 
British representative, Thornton, and scared the French 
minister, Pinchon, into a promise to endeavor to secure the 
opening of the Mississippi from France. Yrujo, the Spanish 
minister, did obtain a temporary restoration of the right 
of deposit at New Orleans. 

For the serious handling of the question Jefferson reverted 
to the method thrice employed by the Federalists, a special 
Jefferson's mission; and he chose Monroe for the office, 

policy rpj^g latter was instructed to purchase New 

Orleans and the Floridas, being allowed to bid anything up 
to ten million dollars. Congress had just appropriated two 
million for the purpose. If the purchase could not be made, 

^ Henry Adams, History of the United States during the Administrations of 
Jefferson and Madison, 9 vols., New York, 1889-91 (gives an incomparable 
account of the diplomacy of the period). See also F. A. Ogg, The Opening 
of the Mississippi, New York, 1904. 



THE LOUISIANA PURCHASE 145 

he was to secure an acknowledgment of the right of deposit. 
If this could not be obtained, he was to await new instruc- 
tions. The cabinet decided that in such case negotiations 
should be protracted until the next inevitable war between 
England and France broke out, and then cooperation should 
be arranged with England. In accordance with this policy 
of delay the departure of Monroe was not hurried, and he did 
not leave till March 8, 1803. 

Jefferson's policy was exactly adapted to the situation. 
The only criticism is, that he ought to have overcome his 

scruples against a navy and have strengthened „ 

... , , . . Napoleon's 

our position m order that we might be in change of 

readiness for the war which was so definite a 
possibility. The event, however, was in no wise dependent 
upon him, and had practically been consummated before 
Monroe reached Paris. In January, 1803, news reached 
France of the death, from disease, of Leclerc and a large 
part of the French army in San Domingo and of the revival 
of revolt. Napoleon, while steadfast in the pursuit of funda- 
mental purposes, never shot a second arrow to recover one 
lost in a side issue. He was already interesting himself in 
the prospect of a new European war. On March 12, 1803, 
he practically broke with England. Under such circum- 
stances he was not so foolish as to squander another army on 
America. The colonial empire was dropped. 

Napoleon was too able an economist to keep intact ma- 
chinery for which he now had no use: he would scrap it for 
what it would bring. On April 10 he spoke of j. . 
Louisiana to Barbe Marbois, who, familiar scraps Louis- 
with American affairs from our own Revolu- 
tion, was negotiating with Livingston. England, he said, 
would seize it at the first moment of war, and added: "I 
think of ceding it to the United States. I can hardly say 
that I cede it to them, for it is not yet in our possession. 
If, however, I leave the least time to our enemies, I shall 
only transmit an empty title to those republicans whose 



146 AMERICAN DIPLOMACY 

friendship I seek. . . . Irresolution and deliberation are 

no longer in reason; I renounce Louisiana. It is not only 

New Orleans that I cede, it is the whole colony, without 

reserve. I know the price of what I abandon." Marbois was 

to get at least fifty million francs for the cession. 

On April 11 this proposal was broached to Livingston, and 

the next day Monroe arrived. Negotiations proceeded with 

the rapidity customary when Napoleon was in 
Negotiations , , * -, „^ , • , 

command, and on April 30 the treaty was signed. 

In return for the cession we agreed to pay sixty million francs, 

and we assumed the payment to our own citizens of claims 

against France to the extent of not over twenty million francs. 

That Napoleon made a good bargain must be conceded. 
He received more money than the minimum he had set; 
Napoleon's he won, too, some of that feeling of friendship 

bargain which he had mentioned ; and he kept Louisiana 

out of the hands of England. Moreover, there seems to be 
no reason to believe that he had any idea that he was re- 
nouncing Louisiana. Perhaps his mind saw things too 
simply: his struggle was with England; once England was 
downed, the world was his to command. The very difficulty 
in disposing of Louisiana which even he had with his ad- 
visers and with public opinion illustrates the hold which 
the vision of America had on the French mind. Actually 
with the delivery of New Orleans to the United States, De- 
cember 20, 1803, and the independence of Hayti, or western 
San Domingo, proclaimed November 29 of the same year, 
France was eliminated as a territorial factor in our history; 
but although the crisis had passed, her policies and ambi- 
tions continued to be of moment. 

In America the news of the treaty was confounding. It 
was more than had been hoped for; it was not exactly what 
Problem of the was desired. It raised a score of opportunities 
^^^^ for dispute and distraction. In the first place, 

there was no specific power to annex territory granted in the 
constitution, although it was easily inferred from the power 



THE LOUISIANA PURCHASE 147 

to make treaties. More seriously discussed was the clause 
of the treaty providing that the inhabitants of the ceded 
territory should be "incorporated in the Union." The Fed- 
eralists were willing to annex territories to govern, but not 
to give them a share in the government. By the acceptance 
of the treaty, however, this question was at least quieted. 
The treaty also provided that France and Spain be exempted 
from discriminating duties in the ports of Louisiana for 
twelve years, and that France remain forever after that on 
the basis of the most favored nation. The first of these 
provisions was of doubtful constitutionality, while the second 
was long a source of dispute with France. 

These were problems that could be settled at leisure, and 
they were but pin-pricks compared with those which the 
purchase solved. The navigation of the Mis- Results of the 
sissippi was now completely freed, and its ^^^*y 
future was not dependent upon the continued favor of any 
foreign nation. All the interests which had drawn the fron- 
tiersmen toward Spain or Great Britain, dividing their 
allegiance, now were added ties to strengthen their natural 
bonds of race and sympathy with the American government. 
The completeness of the change was shown by the utter 
collapse of Burr's conspiracy in 1806. 

What his plans were is not entirely clear; probably he 
himself changed them so often that they lost their definite- 
ness. At any rate, he played on all the cus- Burr's con- 
tomary strings of western adventure. His ^piracy 
objective was Spanish America. England's cooperation he 
sought, offering through the British minister. Merry, in 
1804 "to effect a separation of the western part of the United 
States from that which lies between the Atlantic and the 
mountains, in its whole extent." While still vice-president 
he journeyed through the West and collected material for 
an expedition; he was also in touch with Wilkinson, now in 
command of the western department. The latter, however, 
was more weatherwise than Burr, and, bribed by Spain, he 



148 AMERICAN DIPLOMACY 

betrayed Burr, and the whole bubble burst. In fact, it 
never had any semblance of real strength, for there was 
no motive for disloyalty, or even lack of loyalty, in the West. 
The government of the United States had obtained for it 
its most conspicuous desire.^ 

So much the purchase of Louisiana had accomplished, 
while it was not yet clear just what Louisiana was. To 
Western limits the westward it had never had a boundary; 
of Louisiana even sucli boundary agreements as had once 
existed had been absorbed by the Spanish annexation of 
1763, and were lost to memory. Napoleon had ordered 
Victor to occupy to the Rio Grande, but this fact was un- 
known to the American government. Jefferson's imagina- 
tion, however, stretched to the uttermost limits of the op- 
portunity. Even before he had acquired Louisiana he had 
planned its exploration, and in 1804 started the Lewis and 
Clark expedition westward, up the Missouri, across the 
mountains, and beyond any conceivable limits of the pur- 
chase, to the Pacific. In 1805 the expedition descended 
the Columbia and thus added a link to the chain of our 
claims to the Oregon country, the first of which had been 
forged when Captain Gray in 1791 had entered the mouth 
of that river. The record of the expedition, put in popular 
form by Nicholas Biddle on its return, engaged the imagina- 
tion of the far-seeing in dreams which made the purchase of 
Louisiana seem but a step in our progress. In 1805 and 1807 
Captain Zebulon Pike was sent into the region south of the 
Missouri, where he felt the Spaniards, and gained an idea 
of the actual limits of what we had acquired.^ 

To the eastward the situation was more definite, in fact 
it was definite. Our treaty of cession recited as its definition 
of Louisiana the description given in the treaty of San 

^ W. F. McCaleb, The Aaron Burr Conspiracy, New York, 1903. 

* Henry Gannett, Boundaries of the United States and of the several States 
and Territories, id edition, 1900 (V. S. Geological Survey, Bulletin, No. 171); 
H. E. Chambers. West Florida, Baltimore. 1898. 



THE LOUISIANA PURCHASE 149 

Ildefonso between France and Spain: "The Colony or Prov- 
ince of Louisiana with the same extent that it now has in the 

hands of Spain, and that it had when France ,, , 

y . Eastern 

possessed it, and such as it should be after boundary of 
the treaties subsequently entered into between 
Spain and other states." This definition was obviously 
self-contradictory. Louisiana, when France possessed it, 
stretched eastward to the Perdido river and included 
Mobile; the province as it was in the hands of Spain ex- 
tended only to the Iberville. The meaning, however, was 
clear enough. The treaty was entitled one of "retrocession." 
Spain could retrocede to France only what she had received 
from France; that is the region from the Iberville westward 
given her in 1763. Although in 1800 she held that between 
the Iberville and the Perdido, it was by cession from England 
in 1783, and was separately organized as part of the province 
of West Florida. This was well understood by the French. 
Berthier wrote, "After the general peace, the King might 
decide to cede a part of the Floridas between the Mississippi 
and the Mobile, on the special demand which the First 
Consul might make of it." Talleyrand wrote to Napoleon, 
November 18, 1802, "West Florida suffices for the desired 
enlargement of Louisiana, it completes the retrocession of 
the French Colony, such as it was given to Spain." The 
instructions to General Victor ordered him to take posses- 
sion only to the Iberville. 

Madison, Livingston, and Monroe, however, seized upon 
the ambiguity. In a small way each of the rivers flowing 
into the gulf presented the same problem as united states 
the Mississippi. Population was occupying <=l"™s 
their upper banks, and desired to use them as outlets for 
their products. So far as immediate utility was concerned, 
the securing of the territory beyond the Mississippi, which 
no one had thought of buying, was not a compensation for 
the gulf fringe of West Florida, which Livingston and Monroe 
had been instructed to purchase. Our relations with Spain, 



150 AMERICAN DIPLOMACY 

moreover, were sure to be unpleasant whether we pressed 
this additional claim or not, for Napoleon had promised 
Spain never to give Louisiana to a foreign power. This 
promise, to be sure, was not incorporated in the treaty of 
San Ildefonso and did not impair our title, but it afforded 
a starting-point of disagreement. Under these circumstances 
the government decided that we had actually purchased the 
territory to the Perdido, the wish having a very close rela- 
tion to the thought. 

The dispute, of course, was with Spain, but as a matter of 
fact Napoleon controlled Spain. Except for a brief and un- 
Napoleon's successful mission of Monroe to Madrid, the 

game American government recognized the logic of 

the situation, and directed its efforts to the fountain head 
at Paris. Though claiming title, it was nevertheless willing 
to pay for the recognition of it, and to purchase other por- 
tions of the derelict Spanish empire. Napoleon might have 
settled the question as to the boundary by opening his records. 
He preferred, however, mystery and confusion. Talleyrand 
said to Livingston, "You have made a noble bargain and I 
suppose you will make the most of it," From 1804 to 1812, 
indeed, the Florida question became a barometer of European 
conditions. When pressure was heavy. Napoleon was ready 
to treat for a money consideration: December 24, 1804, 
Armstrong wrote to Madison, "This country has deter- 
mined to convert the negotiation into a job, and to draw from 
it advantages merely pecuniary to herself." \Vlien pressure 
was light. Napoleon was shocked at the assumption that he 
might sell property belonging to his ally. When by the ac- 
cession of his brother Joseph to the throne of Spain the pos- 
sessions of that crown became part of the estate of the 
house of Bonaparte, he warned the United States against 
interference. 

On the whole, it may be said that Napoleon used the 
Florida question as a bait to keep the United States in 
the vicinity of his hook, and that he was not without some 



THE LOUISIANA PURCHASE 151 

success. In the end, however, fate and Madison got the 
better of him. That portion of the disputed region on the 
east bank of the Mississippi between the thirty- ^^^ ^^.^^ ^^ 
first parallel and the Iberville was being oc- disputed teni- 
cupied by American settlers, regardless of its 
international status. In September, 1810, these people 
proclaimed their independence and asked for annexation to 
the United States. October 27, 1810, Madison, acting on 
the supposition that it was already United States territory, 
ordered its occupation, whereupon Claiborne, governor of 
Orleans territory, took possession to the Pearl river, the 
present boundary between the states of Louisiana and Mis- 
sissippi. In 1813 General Wilkinson occupied Mobile and 
the region eastward to the Perdido. From that time the 
United States remained in possession of its utmost claims 
as to the eastern boundary of Louisiana, but its title to that 
part of it between the Iberville and the Perdido had yet 
to be determined. 



CHAPTER XIII 

THE EMBARGO 

The war renewed between France and England in 1803, 
the shadow of which brought us Louisiana, had many other 
Change of con- things in store for us, both pleasant and un- 
ditions pleasant. The course of the struggle from 1803 

to 1815 parallels in many ways that between 1793 and 1802. 
Some of the factors, however, had changed. Our own West 
had become strong enough to master its own destiny; it was 
now so firmly attached to the government that it ceased 
for the present to enter into the plans of European states. 
The policy of our government continued to be that of neu- 
trality, but its sympathies were now French instead of Eng- 
lish. Its methods of preserving neutrality, moreover, were 
so decidedly different as to change the whole character of 
our diplomacy. In the case of both France and England, 
the preceding war had witnessed experiments; the new one 
found determined policies. The defeat of Napoleon's navies 
at Trafalgar in 1805 gave England a more complete control 
of the sea than she had ever had before, while his victories 
by land isolated her from the continent in a manner new and 
menacing. 

With the diplomatic elimination of the West, American 
commerce with the belligerents became the focus of attention. 
American com- Its steady-going element consisted in the ex- 
™®''*^® change of our raw products for England's 

manufactures. Carried on largely in our own vessels, it was 
safe, fairly unvarying in quantity, and brought in reasonable 
profits to respectable established firms. Less important was 
that carried on with the British colonies under temporary 
suspensions of the navigation laws and by special licences. 

152 



THE EMBARGO 153 

Part of this trade, it is true, was practically regular and suited 
to the conservative temperament. As however, the permis- 
sions were based on the needs of the moment, there was a fluc- 
tuating margin, which gave opportunity to those with a keen 
scent for special venture and quick turnovers. News of 
crops and markets was eagerly read, and the British govern- 
ment was besieged with special applications. In 1809 it 
refused a licence to export ice and snow from the United 
States to the West Indies ; those were commodities sufficiently 
abundant in the loyal colony of Canada. 

More adventurous, and after 1805 partaking somewhat of 
the nature of speculation, was the continued attempt to 
supply France with her breakfast of West American car- 
Indian coffee, sugar, and cocoa. Hayti was rymg-trade 
now practically free, but its market continued to be France; 
and the other islands furnished their quota. In return the 
islands wanted provisions, which we ourselves could furnish, 
and manufactured goods, which should have come from 
France but which we often secured for them from England. 
This trade demanded high freight rates and protected itself 
by insurance. It produced both fortunes and bankruptcies. 
By 1805 it overshadowed the safer trade with England. 
Between 1803 and 1806 our exports of domestic goods sank 
from $42,206,000 to $41,253,000; those of foreign goods rose 
from $13,594,000 to $60,283,000.^ 

Still choicer titbits invited those who frankly disregarded 
business principles and resorted to speculation pure and sim- 
ple. To add to their lading of French colonial Speculative 
products some of the manufactures of England ^«°tures 
so eagerly desired and so highly priced on the continent, and, 
protected by licences from England and France, to carry on 
trade between the enemies, or to carry it on unprotected, 
induced many to risk ships and liberty. To disregard the 

^ Mathew Carey, The Olive Branch, Philadelphia, 1815 (contains many 
original documents and statistics); British and Foreign State Papers (an 
annual series). 



154 AMERICAN DIPLOIVIACY 

restrictive laws framed with such rapidity by the United 
States government, to gamble on a change of regulation 
before reaching port or on the possibility of bribing officials, 
to coast from one French port to another, to rove at will 
over the ocean using whatever flag and papers were con- 
venient at the moment, involved serious risks, but not suf- 
ficient danger to exclude such practices. Everywhere the 
Americans found and made business. Gallatin estimated 
that our merchant marine grew seventy thousand tons a 
year and called for over four thousand additional men; and 
Phineas Bond had already in 1796 referred to the enter- 
prising spirit of so many of our traders in "forcing the pre- 
scribed channels of commerce." To shepherd such a reckless 
crew was no easy task for an administration so firmly based 
on the idea of self-government, but at heart so paternalistic, 
as was that of Jefferson. 

The attitude of Great Britain toward this trade was not 
a simple one. Underlying all her actions was a sensitive 
Great Britain's national jealousy at the growth of a rival mer- 
P°^'*^y chant marine, and a constant purpose to give 

every possible advantage to her own. She did not wish to 
cut off all trade with the enemy; she was especially anxious 
to sell all the manufactured goods possible. She tried, there- 
fore, to confine trade to channels favorable to herself, and 
to cause it to pass under her watchful eye. Agricultural 
conditions had so readjusted themselves on the continent 
that there was less chance of starving France into submis- 
sion; hence the question of regarding provisions as contra- 
band of war was not so important as in the previous war. 
In the execution of her policy she showed an arrogance and 
a carelessness of others that often caused her to persist in 
practices not essential to her general policy and yet provoca- 
tive of retaliation. England's policy cannot be considered 
apart from her bad manners. 

The policy of Napoleon toward neutral trade was based 
on the ideas of the Directory. It was subsidiary to his cen- 



THE EMBARGO 155 

tral idea of destroying England by destroying her commerce. 
He would close all the ports of the world to British trade, 
he would cause her ships to be idle and her Napoleon's 
factories to be glutted with unsalable goods; P^^^y 
then bankruptcy and submission would be inevitable. This 
was the fundamental purpose which underlay his entire 
foreign policy from 1805, and which resulted in the climatic 
tragedy of the Russian invasion. While he undoubtedly 
miscalculated the tenacity of the British will, and thought 
that less pressure would be necessary to bring a nation of 
shopkeepers to terms than proved to be the case, his plan was 
not fantastic and he may have come within sight of success. 
He himself, when at Elba, reviewing and magnifying, like 
so many lesser of the fallen, the turns of fortune against 
him, said that he should have succeeded had not the Spanish 
revolt opened up to England, after 1808, the trade of Spanish 
America which she had so long desired and which gave a 
new market for her surplus products.^ It should not be held 
against him as an inconsistency, or as an evidence of the im- 
possibility of his plan, that his armies were often clothed in 
British goods. He realized the temporary necessity, but 
under the protection of his system he expected to develop 
self-sufficing industry on the continent. Indeed, one of the 
most permanent results of his rule has been found to be pre- 
cisely this development. With such a policy Napoleon knew 
no neutrals: trade with his enemy was vital assistance to 
his enemy. This policy, however, was diplomatically veiled 
so as to enable him to employ neutral vessels for his own pur- 
poses. The details of his regulations therefore change from 
time to time. Without a navy, he was driven to such meas- 
ures as could be enforced in his own ports. 

In the United States the policy formulated to defend our 
trade was emphatically Jefferson's, although it so closely 
resembled Napoleon's that it was attributed to French in- 

^ T. B. Richards, " An Unpublished Talk with Napoleon," Harper's Maga- 
zine, January 1911, pp. 165-175. 



156 AMERICAN DIPLOMACY 

fluence. If there was any connection, however, it was Jeffer- 
son who originated the plan. Even as a youth he had 
Jefferson's been much impressed with the rapidity with 

policy which the colonial non-importation agreements 

had brought England to terms, and he believed that similar 
pressure would be as effective between nations as it had 
proved between colony and mother country. He may well 
have discussed the matter with the French revolutionary 
leaders during his residence in France. Certainly on his re- 
turn he urged it upon Congress in his report of 1793. Now 
as president he intended to use it as the bulwark of defence 
for our commerce and our merchant marine. 

The first serious difficulty arose with England over the 
trade of the French West Indies. As a result of decisions 

^ , J .of Sir William Scott in the cases of the Emanuel 
England and 

the French in 1799 and the Polly m 1800, that trade had 
been allowed to the Americans if carried on 
from the colonies to the United States and from the United 
States to France. July 23, 1805, in the case of the Essex, 
Scott practically reversed himself, declaring that on an inno- 
cent voyage between the United States and Europe the 
neutral owner of such colonial goods must be able to prove 
by something more than evidence of a custom-house entry 
that his original intention had been to terminate his venture 
in an American port. Upon this theory several American 
vessels were condemned, and the trade, while not prohibited, 
was rendered uncertain and difficult; for it was, of course, 
almost never the intention of the American owner to ter- 
minate his venture in the United States, and he was actually 
in most cases owner merely in form and not in substance, 
a situation that might be revealed by the British courts 
which it was framed to deceive. This trade, as well as other 
branches of traffic, was soon additionally hampered by a 
British order in council of May 16, 1806, blockading the coast 
from Havre to Ostend and prohibiting the coast trade to 
neutrals from Havre to the Elbe. 



THE EMBARGO 157 

Another source of difficulty arose from the discovery by 

the British that this blockade could be more effectively 

and conveniently enforced off the American „, , . . 
'' . Blockade of 

than the French coast. For years, it became American 
customary for every American vessel leaving 
New York, the Chesapeake, and other harbors to heave to, 
and submit to a vigorous search. If the result created sus- 
picion, the vessel was put in charge of a British officer and 
sent to Halifax for adjudication by the admiralty court 
there. In 1806, in the execution of this police duty, the 
British accidentally shot and killed an American sea-captain. 

Usually the vessel was allowed to proceed, but in a 
large number of cases with the loss of members of its 
crew. The impressment problem gave in- 
creasing trouble. Of the four thousand new 
seamen demanded each year by the merchant marine 
twenty-five hundred, it was reckoned, were British born, 
most of them sailors who preferred the better wages, 
food, and treatment to be found on American vessels. 
Such transfer of allegiance in the heat of the national 
life-and-death struggle was regarded by British public opin- 
ion as no less than desertion; hence the navy vigorously 
resorted to impressment to redress the balance. It is esti- 
mated that there were a thousand cases annually. 

It was in this state of affairs that the clauses of the Jay 
treaty relating to neutral rights expired. Jefferson pre- 
pared to substitute for them a new and better j^j^^j^g ^^^ 
treaty. To bring pressure to bear upon Eng- Pinkney in 
land, he had Congress pass a non-importation 
act, prohibiting the entry of certain British goods which 
he esteemed not necessary to our happiness. Its operation 
was not to be immediate, but it was to hang like a sword of 
Damocles over the negotiations. Many doubted its effi- 
ciency. John Randolph derided it as "a milk and water 
bill, a dose of chicken broth to be taken nine months hence." 
To bring it to the attention of England, Jefferson appointed 



158 AMERICAN DIPLOMACY 

a commission consisting of Monroe, who had succeeded King 
as minister, and William Pinkney. Their instructions, 
drawn up by Madison, insisted upon three ultimata, — 
namely, an agreement regarding impressments, indemnity 
for American vessels and cargoes condemned, as we held, 
unjustly, and a satisfactory provision regarding the trade of 
the French West Indies. "We begin to broach the idea 
that we consider the whole Gulf stream as our waters," said 
Madison, a remark which reminds one of Fauchet's comment 
in 1795, that America "puffs itself up with its position and 
the future power to which it can pretend." 

Happy in beginning their negotiations under the auspices 
of Charles James Fox, always the friend of America and now 
foreign minister, they found their hopes soon dashed by his 
death. It is probable, however, that this made little differ- 
ence, for on the subjects upon which they desired acquies- 
cence no British minister would have dared offer even com- 
promise. Unable to obtain a single important concession 
they nevertheless signed a treaty on December 31, 1806, 
which was as unsatisfactory as that of Jay on matters of 
international law, besides affording none of the compensa- 
tions which that treaty offered, for there were no outstanding 
matters at issue of a character not thought to be necessary 
to England's national existence. The treaty was not con- 
summated ; Jefferson never presented it to the Senate. 

With the failure of the treaty, the lightning began to 
play in dead earnest. In November, 1806, Napoleon had 
Napoleon's de- issued his Berlin decree declaring the British 
"** isles blockaded, with the result, as concerned 

neutrals, that no vessel coming from England or her colonies 
should after a nine months' notice be admitted into any 
French port. This was followed by the Milan decree of 
December 17, 1807, which declared that any vessel submit- 
ting to search by a British ship, paying duty to the British 
government, or coming from or destined for a British port 
should be good prize. 



THE EMBARGO 159 

Meantime an English order in council of January 7, 1807, 
known as Lord Howick's order, forbade neutral vessels 
to engage in the French coasting trade, even British orders 
between unblockaded ports. The British at- i^ ^ouncU 
titude is indicated in a dispatch from Lord Howick to 
Erskine, the British minister to the United States: "His 
Majesty, with that forbearance and moderation which has 
at all times distinguished his conduct, has determined for the 
present to confine himself to the exercise of the powers given 
him by his decided naval superiority in such manner only 
as is authorized by the acknowledged principles of the law 
of nations." On November 11, 1807, an order known as 
Spencer Perceval's established a "paper" blockade of the 
whole European coast from Trieste to Copenhagen. No 
neutral vessel could enter any port from which British ves- 
sels were excluded, unless clearing from a British port and 
under British regulations, including the payment of duties, 
a condition which ipso facto rendered it liable to seizure by 
France. 

While this clash of decrees and orders sounded but dimly 
in the ears of most Americans, uncertain as yet as to what 
they portended, an episode on the coast of ^^^ Leopard- 
America roused the nation, so observers said, Chesapeake 
more than anything had done since Lexington. 
The Chesapeake, an American frigate fitting for the Mediter- 
ranean, enrolled a number of men whom the British ad- 
miral off the coast claimed as deserters. Commodore Barron 
satisfied himself that such was not the case, and on June 22, 
1807, set sail. The Chesapeake was followed by the Leopard, 
one of the vessels enforcing the blockade of Europe off Chesa- 
peake Bay, and was ordered to heave to. After a formal 
resistance, she lowered her flag, officers from the Leopard 
took off the men in question, and left the Chesapeake, which 
promptly returned to Norfolk. 

This extension of the practice of impressment to national 
naval vessels found no support even in the elastic interna- 



160 AMERICAN DIPLOMACY 

tional law of the day. The British government did not at- 
tempt to defend it, but it handled the matter with so un- 
popular indig- pardonable a stupidity that the episode re- 
nation mained an open sore for four years. Jefferson 

expressed his indignation in a proclamation of July 2, which 
forbade the use of American harbors to British war vessels, 
and on July 30 he called a special session of Congress. 

The measure that he recommended was not war, but it no 
less reflected the seriousness of his view of the situation. War 

he believed a barbarism; for it he would substi- 
The embargo . * i i i- i i 

tute the appeal to mterest. As he believed that 

under normal conditions commercial discrimination was an ef- 
fective instrument, so he believed that under abnormal condi- 
tions a total cessation of trade would exert all the compulsive 
efforts of war without its horrors. In other words, he would 
have us withdraw from the commerce of the world, in the 
belief that it would not be long before the nations would be 
clamoring for us to reopen our ports on our own terms. As 
a result of his recommendation, on December 21, 1807, a 
general and indefinite embargo was established. No vessel 
was to leave port, except (1) foreign vessels in ballast, or 
with such cargo as they had laded before the passage of the 
act, and (2) vessels engaged in the coasting trade. This 
embargo seemed to resemble that established at the time of 
Jay's mission to England; but it is to be differentiated from 
that because it was regarded by those who adopted it, not 
as a temporary expedient providing for the safety of our 
shipping, but as a weapon to conquer favorable terms from 
our adversaries. 

So it happened that, before our merchants could be sure 
what effect the rival orders and decrees might have upon 

__ ^ - ^, their business, — although thev felt certain that 
Effect of the . ' 

embargo on there would be loopholes in both the French 

and English systems, — their own government 

laid a restraining hand on all their ventures. It was the 

steady-going merchants who suffered most, those who were 



THE EMBARGO 161 

engaged in the regular trade with England and her colonies, 
and so were comparatively untouched by the regulations 
either of that country or of France. The more adventurous 
could always find opportunities for traffic by evading or dis- 
regarding the law. Until stopped by a supplementary act, 
many vessels cleared for an American port but found them- 
selves driven by stress of weather to the West Indies. Once 
there, they sold their goods. Even when this practice was 
stopped, some preserved freedom by remaining away from 
home. April 11, 1808, an English order in council forbade 
the seizure of American vessels in the West Indies and South 
America, even if without papers. In March, April, and May 
sixteen American vessels were allowed to enter English ports. 
Although numbers of American vessels thus found employ- 
ment it was, however, in carrying on the business of others, 
not in supplying the United States with what she desired 
and taking from her ports what she had for sale. Our com- 
merce was dead. 

Whether or not Jefferson was right in claiming that Amer- 
ican commerce was more essential to other nations than to 
ourselves, at any rate we had a governmental Failure of the 
organization more sensitive to public distress embargo 
than other nations. The embargo did cause suffering in the 
British empire: Newfoundland was on the point of starva- 
tion, and English mills shut down, with all the attendant 
woes. England, however, remained firm. 

In the United States opposition swept down the coast. 
In New England the criticism of the commercial classes, 
unappreciative of this attempt to clear the Repeal of the 
seas by forbidding the use of them, rose to ^^^bargo 
fury. New England statesmen talked of disunion. In the 
middle states the farmer, for whose crops the home market 
was inadequate, added his voice to that of the merchant of 
New York, Philadelphia, and Baltimore. Washington Irving, 
in his Knickerbocker history of New York, ridiculed the 
embargo: "Never was a more comprehensive, a more ex- 



162 AMERICAN DIPLOMACY 

peditious, or, what is still better, a more economical measure 
devised, than this of defeating the Yankees by proclama- 
tion — an expedient, likewise, so gentle and humane, there 
were ten chances to one in favor of its succeeding, — but 
then there was one chance to ten that it would not succeed, — 
as the ill-natured fates would have it, that single chance car- 
ried the day." Even the Virginia planters, groaning under 
the burden of supporting their slaves, whose products re- 
mained unsold on the plantation, protested. On February 28, 
1809, the embargo was repealed, having brought about no 
amelioration of our international position. 



CHAPTER XIV 

WAR WITH ENGLAND 

The succession of Madison to the presidency on March 4, 
1809, meant no change of ideas. In fact, it hardly involved a 
change of personnel; for Jefferson was still Non-inter- 
consulted, and the new secretary of state, ^°^^^ 
Robert Smith, was scarcely more than a figure-head, Madi- 
son himself often writing his dispatches. The embargo had 
failed, but a substitute had been provided. This took the 
form of a non-intercourse act, which opened up commerce 
to the rest of the world but prohibited it with France, Eng- 
land, and their colonies. To them America remained tight 
closed. The law set forth, however, that should England 
withdraw her orders, or France her decrees, the President 
could resume intercourse with the complaisant power. 

In spite of the importance of the restrictions that remained, 
the merchant marine soon found unparalleled opportunities 
for employment. That of Massachusetts in- Prosperity of 
creased from 310,000 tons in 1807 to 352,000 con^n^erce 
tons in 1810. The British armies in Spain and Portugal 
needed provisions, and those countries were open to our 
trade. To the north, Russia was free to neutrals after De- 
cember 31, 1810, and we were practically the only neutrals. 
This opportunity was not too far afield for our enterprize. 
By way of the Baltic and the port of Riga, and even by the 
Arctic port of Archangel, the route to which had the ad- 
vantage of lying far from the haunts of the British navy, we 
sent to Russia, in 1810, $3,975,000 worth of goods, in 1811, 
$6,137,000 worth. To guard this new trade, we exchanged 
ministers with that country in 1809, sending thither John 
Quincy Adams, who had now affiliated with the dominant 

;ie3 



164 AMERICAN DIPLOMACY 

party, Holland and Naples, moreover, and other stretches 
of European coast, though actually under Napoleonic con- 
trol, were not legally French and did not fall within our 
prohibition. To them we could send such things as Napoleon 
wished and England did not object to. Fish and oil were 
permitted, but cotton England banned as tending to build 
up French manufactures. Nor did prohibition by law ac- 
tually prevent American vessels from dropping into the 
harbors of France herself, when the way was open. In addi- 
tion, our ships were licensed by the belligerents to carry on 
some of that exchange between them which was so beneficial 
that it defied the dictates of policy. Increasingly, however, 
this trade was given to their own vessels, and it never was so 
large as the unlicensed smuggling carried on by the boatmen 
of the Channel in the teeth of the authorities of both coun- 
tries. If by this description the ocean may seem to have 
been a smooth road to the Americans, it must be borne in 
mind that there were always the perils of search and im- 
pressment, and the chances of sudden changes in regulations, 
involving delay, seizure, and confiscation. Worse still, the 
standard trade of bringing English manufactures into the 
United States, and of exporting tobacco and other goods to 
England and provisions to her colonies, was practically 
ended. ^ 

It was under these circumstances that George Canning, 
now British minister of foreign affairs, resolved to take ad- 
Erskine ar- vantage of the offer contained in the non- 
rangement intercourse act in order to reopen the American 

market to British manufactures. This negotiation was to 
take place in America, and he instructed his minister at 
Washington to announce that the orders would be recalled 
on condition that we withdraw non-intercourse with Eng- 

^ For the study of the actual course of commerce during these years the 
Guide to the Material in London Archives for the History of the United States 
since 1783, by C. O. I'aullin and F. L. Paxson, is useful. It describes the 
papers to the period of the Civil War. The records of the Board of Trade 
are found to contain the most novel material. 



WAR WITH ENGLAND 165 

land, that we forego trade with the French West Indies, and 
that we allow England to enforce our non-intercourse act 
with France. The British minister at this time was David 
Montague Erskine, a young Whig appointed by Fox in 
1806, very friendly toward America and married to an Amer- 
ican wife. With him an agreement was made which dealt 
with the Chesapeake affair and the recall of the orders, and 
looked to the formation of a general treaty of commerce 
between the United States and Great Britain, but which 
left out Canning's last two conditions. In accordance with 
this arrangement, Madison, on June 10, 1809, declared inter- 
course with Great Britain restored. 

Canning at once rejected the agreement, recalled Erskine, 
and sent in his place Francis James Jackson, who was not 
expected to repeat Erskine's mistake of over- Canning dis- 
friendliness to America, and who lived up to *^°^s Erskine 
his reputation. After five weeks' exchange of notes, which 
grew increasingly unpleasant, the American government re- 
fused to deal further with him. Canning, however, had 
promised him a year in America, and he was not recalled 
until the end of it. Until the autumn of 1810, therefore, the 
United States and Great Britain were provided with a burr 
under the saddle which the tact of Pinkney, our minister at 
London, could scarcely be expected to make comfortable. 

Meanwhile Napoleon had not been unconscious of the 
United States, though he had not needed to give her much 
of his attention, since her policy conformed Napoleon and 
to his own, and he seemed to be reaping *^® embargo 
the reward for the sale of Louisiana. As if in accordance 
with his desires, — but in reality because of the southern 
objection to recognizing a republic founded on a slave in- 
surrection, — intercourse had in 1806 been prohibited with his 
revolted colony of Hayti, in which he took a fleeting in- 
terest. The embargo again, though a measure based on 
Jefferson's philosophy, exactly fitted into Napoleon's con- 
tinental system. Although he objected to it as regarded 



166 AMERICAN DIPLOMACY 

France, he could not have devised a plan better suited to 
his purposes had he been dictator of America. "The Em- 
peror applauds the embargo," said Turreau, French minister 
at Washington. On April 5, 1808, Napoleon issued from 
Bayonne a decree ordering the sequestration of all American 
vessels arriving in France, as presumably British property 
sailing under false papers, no American vessels being legally 
afloat. 

The repeal of the embargo was therefore a rebuff, and its 
form, by grouping England and France together and differ- 

_, , J entiating between France and her dependent 

Napoleon and ° . ^ 

non-inter- states, was still more so. Moreover, the pro- 

hibition of Haytian trade, which had never 
been effective, lapsed about the same time. Napoleon there- 
fore ordered his minister to withdraw from Washington. 
On August 4, 1809, after Canning's disavowal of the Erskine 
agreement had assured a return to non-intercourse and a 
period of aggravation between England and the United 
States, while the battle of Wagram gave him command of 
Europe, he issued the decree of Vienna, ordering the seizure 
and confiscation of "every American ship which shall enter 
the ports of France, Spain, or Italy." This step he justified 
by the arguments that those entering French ports were 
violating the law of the United States, and that the other 
countries under French control should not be allowed to 
enjoy trade forbidden to France. The decree was kept secret, 
apparently in order to induce American vessels to enter. 
Thiers says: "To admit false neutrals in order to confiscate 
them afterwards, greatly pleased his astute mind, little 
scrupulous in the choice of means, especially in regard to 
shameless smugglers who violated at once the laws of their 
own country and those of the country that consented to 
admit them." ^ Napoleon himself wrote to Danzig: "Let 
the American ships enter your ports ! Seize them afterwards. 

' M. J. L. A. Thiers, Histoire du consulat et de Vemyire (21 vols., Paris, 
etc., 1845-69), vol. xii. 



WAR WITH ENGLAND 167 

You shall deliver the cargoes to me, and I will take them in 
part payment of the Prussian war debt." On March 25, 
1810, he published the Rambouillet decree, which was prac- 
tically a public announcement of that of Vienna, but with 
this difference, that it merely sequestered the American 
vessels instead of confiscating them. He thus held in his 
hands over eight million dollars' worth of American property 
as hostage for our behavior. The number of vessels seized 
in the various countries indicated the state of trade: 51 in 
France, 44 in Spain, 28 in Naples, and 11 in Holland. To 
carry out this vigorous policy he was forced to depose his 
brother Louis, king of Holland, and annex that country to 
France, as well as to drive from the cabinet his valuable 
assistant, Fouche. He still continued, however, to license 
American vessels to import specified goods, and they con- 
tinued to pay high for such licences. 

In spite of the attention that he devoted to it, American 
trade can hardly be said to have been a leading consideration 

with Napoleon at this time; his main desire, „ , 

/ . . . Napoleon and 

the closmg of the American market to British Macon Bill 
goods, was still fulfilled. Very different, how- 
ever, was the situation created by the next change in the 
American system. Restive under our own regulations, public 
sentiment, after a hard struggle, at length. May 1, 1810, ob- 
tained a practical abandonment of the restrictive system 
by means of an act popularly known as "Macon Bill No. 2," 
which allowed trade with all the world. The only continu- 
ance of the policy of using commercial regulation as a weapon 
of diplomacy is found in the provision authorizing the Presi- 
dent, in case either Great Britain or France should, before 
the third day of March following, "so revoke or modify her 
edicts" as to "cease to violate the neutral commerce of the 
United States," and the other country should not do so, to 
renew the non-intercourse act against the obdurate power. 

This was indeed a blow to Napoleon's continental system, 
for it reopened to England her most valuable single market. 



168 AMERICAN DIPLOMACY 

It is said that he devoted three days to a consideration of 
the situation. The result was a letter from his foreign minis- 
ter, Cadore, of August 5, 1810: "In this new state of things, 
I am authorized to declare to you, sir, that the decrees of 
Berlin and Milan are revoked, and that after the 1st of No- 
vember they will cease to have effect; it being understood 
that, in consequence of this declaration, the English shall 
revoke their orders in council, and renounce the new prin- 
ciples of blockade which they have wished to establish; or 
that the United States, conformably to the act you have 
just communicated, shall cause their rights to be respected 
by the English. It is with the most particular satisfaction, 
sir, that I make known to you this determination of the 
Emperor. His majesty loves the Americans. Their pros- 
perity and their commerce are within the scope of his policy." 

But Napoleon's purpose was not the abandonment of his 
system. "It is evident," said he, "that we commit ourselves 
to nothing." He explained to his council that, should the 
English withdraw their orders, he could achieve his results 
by customs regulation. What he hoped was that by the 
ambiguity of his letter he might once more embroil England 
and the United States. Meantime, to clean the slate of 
the past, he ordered the American vessels sequestered by 
the Rambouillet decree to be confiscated. This order was 
not published; but, when its effects became evident, Cadore 
explained that it did not affect the future, that it was in 
reprisal for our non-intercourse act, and that the law of 
reprisal was final. 

Madison seized upon this letter with avidity. He at once 
demanded that Great Britain withdraw her orders, including 
Napoleon and the blockade of 1806, and threatened non- 
Madison intercourse should she fail to do so. The Mar- 
quis of Wellesley, who had succeeded Canning, was more 
favorably disposed toward the United States; but as he read 
the Cadore letter it contained a conditional offer, not a state- 
ment of fact. He thought it meant that, if Great Britain 



WAR WITH ENGLAND 169 

should withdraw her orders, Napoleon would withdraw his 
decrees; that if she should not do so the decrees would also 
remain in force unless the United States made her neutrality 
respected, that is, unless she forced England to recall her 
orders. In this impasse the United States would not, he 
believed, be justified in differentiating between the belliger- 
ents until she received evidence of the withdrawal of the 
decrees. He also found in the letter an additional condition, 
— namely, that Great Britain must renounce her principle 
of blockade. Madison, however, understanding that the 
decrees were actually withdrawn, — for Napoleon failed to 
answer the riddle which he had set, — declared non-intercourse 
with England reestablished after February 2, 1811. He was 
sustained by an act of Congress of March 2, 1811, and in 
April, as an expression of his discontent, he withdrew Pinkney 
from London. Once more, therefore. Napoleon closed the 
American market to England. 

His wall, however, was crumbling at its opposite extremity. 
It has been noted that on December 31, 1810, Russia opened 
her ports to neutral vessels. American ship- Napoleon and 
ping straightway crowded her ports, and much ^"^sia 
that they brought was British. Of our exports to Russia in 
1811, amounting to over $6,000,000, only $1,630,499 were 
of our own products. Nor did the total amount given in 
our figures include cargoes taken in England and admitted 
by Russia because of the American flag borne by the ship 
carrying them, a flag which in many cases it had no right to 
fly. Napoleon called upon the czar to close this breach. The 
Russian court was divided, torn by factions. Curiously, 
Romanzoff, who was sympathetic with France, wished to 
encourage the American merchant marine in order to release 
Russia from her former dependence on England ; Nesselrode, 
whose inclinations were English, objected to extending privi- 
leges to the United States not granted to Great Britain. He 
wished alliance with the latter power. American trade, long 
torn by the dogs of war, thus became the bone of contention 



170 AMERICAN DIPLOMACY 

to set them fighting among themselves. John Quincy Adams 
found himself at St. Petersburg, — familiar to him as a boy- 
hood memory from his stay there while secretary to Francis 
Dana, our first minister, — more vitally involved in European 
entanglements than had been any American minister since 
Franklin. Napoleon would assent to no compromise, the 
czar would not close his ports, and events marched rapidly 
toward war and Napoleon's invasion.^ 

In behalf of our commerce, Russia was preparing for war 
with France and alliance with England; Napoleon was pre- 
paring to force Russia to close her ports to neutral trade. 
Could we still preserve our neutrality in this supreme mo- 
ment of struggle? To which side did our interests ally us? 
To Russia, fighting to defend our rights but allied with Eng- 
land, our great commercial rival? or to Napoleon, endeavoring 
to shut us out of Europe, but professing himself, if he won 
and brought England to terms, willing to establish peace on 
earth and freedom on the seas? Even if these professions 
were not to be accepted at their face value, at any rate it was 
probable that a victorious Napoleon would not be lenient, 
should one have stirred his wrath. 

During the spring of 1811 Madison and Monroe, the latter 
of whom had just replaced Smith at the state department, 
Napoleonic debated over the question. The immediate 

triumph issue was whether we should send a minister 

to France to take the place of Armstrong, who had returned 
to America. Evidence accumulated that Napoleon's decrees 
still operated and that the sequestered American vessels 
were actually confiscated. The balance turned against 
France. At this critical moment, however, Napoleon once 
more proved himself equal to the emergency. His foreign 
minister, the Duke of Bassano, informed Jonathan Russell, 
our secretary of legation, that the emperor had authorized 
"the admission of the American cargoes which had been 

» J. Q. Adams, Memoirs (12 vols., Philadelphia, 1874-77), ii. 491-662, iii. 
1-144. 



WAR WITH ENGLAND 171 

provisionally placed on deposit." This turned the scale; 
Joel Barlow was appointed minister, and relations were con- 
tinued. 

The administration still hoped for peace, although lean- 
ing toward France; but its plans were set at naught by the 
entrance into national politics of two new The "War 
factors. The first was a general fighting spirit ^^^^^ " 
brought to Congress, when it met in the autumn of 1811, by a 
number of young men who soon began to act together and to 
be known as the "War Hawks." The aroma of war had for 
twenty years floated across the Atlantic, but it had brought 
only its glories and not its sorrows. To the younger genera- 
tion war seemed to be almost the normal condition, and to 
offer opportunities of distinction and advancement which 
peace denied. If, however, the wars of Europe had an effect 
on American youth, the effect was general. No longer, as 
in 1793, did the particular issues of European politics divide 
the majority of Americans into partisans of France and of 
England. The new war leaders were nationalists; they 
wished to fight to vindicate the honor of their country, 
smirched, they believed, by her long supine submission to 
the whacks and blows of the belligerents. Isolation they 
accepted, but they did not believe that it must necessarily 
be passive. Many of the leaders were indifferent as to whom 
they fought; Calhoun, the logical, with the enthusiasm of 
youth, would fight both.^ 

Direction was given to this warlike spirit by the second fac- 
tor. Once more western problems became vital : they were to 
determine the issue. This time it was primarily _. „, ^ 
a question of the northwest, though its views 
were voiced in Congress by Henry Clay of Kentucky, speaker 
of the new House of Representatives.^ The most obvious 

1 J. C. Calhoun, Works (ed. R. K. Cralle, 6 vols., New York, 1853-55), 
vol. ii. 

2 Henry Clay, Works (ed. C. Colton, 7 vols., New York, 1897), vol. i. 
eh. ix. 



172 AMERICAN DIPLOMACY 

motive for discontent resulted from the Indian situation. 
Steadily since 1796 the pioneer had pressed into the wilder- 
ness, steadily the government had made broad his way by 
contriving one purchase of Indian land after another. The 
Indians, grumbling, had yielded to necessity; but dissatisfac- 
tion grew among them, and recently had resulted in com- 
bination to resist encroachment. Under the leadership of 
two brothers, Tecumseh, the war chief, and Olliwochica, 
the prophet, the beginnings of a confederacy 
were formed, the leaders conceiving of a union 
not only of the northern tribes but also between the northern 
and southern groups. In 1811 war began in the battle of 
Tippecanoe, near the Wabash. 

That the Indian hostility was encouraged by the British, 
and that the latter would aid the savages in the coming war, 
British and In- was firmly believed by the sanest heads on 
^^^^ the frontier, William Henry Harrison, gover- 

nor of Indiana territory and in command at Tippecanoe, said 
that he could always tell the state of relations between 
United States and Great Britain by the behavior of the 
Indians. Great Britain's policy was actually not different 
from that pursued during Washington's administration. 
There was on the part of the government no incitement to 
hostility; rather, the effort was to keep the peace. On the 
other hand, it maintained, though not entirely of its own 
choice, relations with the Indians which, considering the fact 
that these tribes were within the limits of the United States, 
were not compatible with any principle of international 
comity. Moreover, as was natural on so wild a frontier, 
its control over its own agents and subjects was so lax that 
it was sometimes involved by their acts in complications 
for which it was not directly responsible but which it was 
by its international duty required to prevent. 

The British subjects concerned in these relations were 
nearly all fur-traders. Scotch, French-Canadians, English, 
and half-breeds, they led lives of the most unfettered free- 



WAR WITH ENGLAND 173 

dom, with the exception of an almost complete economic 
dependence upon the two great British companies, the Hud- 
son Bay, and the Northwestern. Together these Fur-trade ri- 
companies dominated the whole region west- ^^"^^ 
ward from Lake Michigan, including what is now Wisconsin 
and the upper reaches of the Mississippi and the Missouri. 
Wide as was the area, its paths, the rivers and trails, were 
none too numerous, and the traders of the two companies 
were continually encountering each other, as well as the 
rivals of both, the Americans. The latter had hitherto not 
been so well organized as the British subjects; but of late 
the American Fur Company, of which John Jacob Astor was 
the leading spirit, had been bringing order out of chaos. 
Astor's imperial plans were now taking the form of estab- 
lishing a permanent settlement on the Pacific coast. He 
engaged experts from the Northwestern Company, and in 
1811 founded the post of Astoria on the Columbia. This 
distant enterprise did not, however, diminish the rivalry 
nearer home. From St. Louis and Michilimackinac went 
forth better and better equipped bands of American traders, 
who competed with those sent out by the British companies. 
The emulation in the forests and plains was transmitted, 
with the skins, to Montreal and to New York, which sup- 
plied the capital for the expeditions and for the establish- 
ment of the posts, and which competed in the disposal of the 
furs. Relatively the British were losing ground; they asked 
for government support; they bemoaned the influence of the 
United States government factories which had been estab- 
lished at Washington's behest. To the American frontiers- 
men, their own government seemed inert and spineless as 
compared with that of Great Britain, and particularly they 
protested at the free use of American soil which the British 
companies enjoyed under the Jay treaty. This growing 
rivalry was temporarily embittered by the fall in the price of 
furs as a result of the European wars. The pressure for 
assistance was equally strong upon both governments, but 



174 AMERICAN DIPLOMACY 

it was most effective at this time in strengthening the call 
for war from the American frontier.^ 

It is not to be supposed that the purpose of the virile 
West was purely self-defence. To north, to west, to south. 
Conquest of it felt nothing stronger than itself, except the 
Canada bonds of the United States government which 

held it in. It strained at the leash. It felt competent, if 
left alone, to settle all its difficulties in the completest man- 
ner by wiping out opposition. It wished merely permission 
to use its strength. February 22, 1810, Henry Clay said 
to the Senate: "The conquest of Canada is in your power, 
I trust I shall not be deemed presumptuous when I state 
that I verily believe that the militia of Kentucky are alone 
competent to place Montreal and Upper Canada at your 
feet." 

The new national spirit, thus directed by the West, swept 

the administration fluttering before it. The breeze was fanned, 

„, , . , to be sure, by some new episodes, such as the 
War declared . . 

encounter in 1811 of the President and the Little 

Belt, in which the former avenged our navy for the maltreat- 
ment of the Chesapeake by the Leopard, and the publication 
by Congress in 1812 of the papers of John Henry, a British 
secret agent; but these things counted little. On April 1, 
1812, in a secret message, Madison recommended an em- 
bargo preparatory to war. On June 1 he recommended war, 
and on July 1 8 Congress accepted the recommendation. 

England at the eleventh hour sought to preserve peace. 
She sent over the comparatively agreeable Augustus John 
England's ef- Foster. Apology and reparation for the 
fort for peace Leopard-Chesapeake affair were at length ar- 
ranged. On June 16 the recall of the orders was voted by 
Parliament. Madison, however, deemed this insufficient. 
He demanded assurance that blockades should not be made 

' Washington Irving, Astoria, 1 vols., Philadelphia, 1836; H. M. Chitten- 
den, The American Fur Trade of the Far West, 3 vols.. New York, 1902; 
The Fur-trade in Wisconsin, Wisconsin Hist. Soc, Collections, 1911, vol. xx. 



WAR WITH ENGLAND 175 

to do the duty of the orders, that the enforcement of English 

blockades off the American coast should cease, and that the 

impressment of seamen should be suspended, pending a treaty 

which should settle the matter definitively. In the election of 

1812 the country supported Madison by reelecting him. It 

is noticeable that the commercial states voted ^ 

, . . 1 • f» 1 c Causes of war 

agamst him, protestmg at this nnal attempt oi 

an administration of agriculturists to protect our commercial 

interests. The West solidly supported him. The causes of 

the war were not Great Britain's failure to agree with us as 

to the position of neutrals, nor did they spring from the 

jockeying of Napoleon; they lay rather in the national anger 

roused by twenty years' disregard of our neutral rights. 

It was not detailed arguments, but accumulated woes, that 

moved the "War Hawks" of the East, while those of the 

West felt the added impulse to obtain a free hand for the 

settlement of their own problems. 



CHAPTER XV 
PEACE 

Until the spring of 1814 Great Britain did not blockade 
the coast north of Cape Cod. In part this forbearance may 
p t R t • hs^ve been due to a hope, based upon the re- 
and New Eng- ports of secret agents Hke John Henry and 
John Howe, her consuls, and Jackson her 
minister, that the discontent of that region might find ex- 
pression in separation from the United States,^ It was true 
that its leading men doubted whether they could forever 
endure a government so distasteful in its policies; and their 
anger mounted higher when, in this supreme moment of the 
contest between Napoleon representing the forces of revolu- 
tion, and England the supporter of order, the administration 
threw its weight into what they believed was the wrong 
scale. Their view was expressed by Pickering's toast to 
Jackson in 1810, "The world's last hope, — Britain's fast- 
anchored isle." This feeling extended to heckling the govern- 
ment, and later to action looking toward a break-up of the 
Union; but it did not reach the point of treating with the 
national enemy, nor did it prevent New England from doing 
its fair share in the war.^ 

Great Britain did not lose by her leniency, however, and 

probably her motive was less political than commercial. The 

„, , West Indies and the armies in Canada needed 

War trade 

supplies, and New England could furnish them, 

and did. As, in the wars between England and France when 

we were colonies, our ship-captains helped supply the French 

^ "Secret Reports of .John Howe, 1808," Amer. Hist. Review, 1911-12, xvii. 
70-102, 332-3.54; see also Paullin and Paxson, Guide,'"hiniy Jackson Papers." 
2 Edmund Quincy, Life of Josiah Quincy (Boston, 1867), 242-306. 

176 



PEACE 177 

West India islands/ so now, under one disguise or another, 
the New England ships brought to Halifax and other ports 
the needed provisions, and from one point or another gath- 
ered cargoes to import into Boston and other open ports. In 
fact, war proved to have less effect on New England com- 
merce than the embargo had had. South of Cape Cod the 
blockade was so far from being of the "paper" variety that 
practically no trade could go on without the assent of Great 
Britain. Her armies in Spain, however, must be fed, and 
they continued to draw their supplies from the ample gran- 
aries about the Chesapeake, brought to them in American 
vessels equipped with special licences. Privateering, more- 
over, was not much more hazardous than were many other 
branches of the trade which Americans had been pursuing. 
Many merchants strengthened their craft, enlarged their 
crews, and scoured the seas for British merchantmen. The 
national balance of captures and losses was not very unequal, 
about seventeen hundred captures of merchant vessels being 
credited to the Americans as against about fourteen hundred 
losses; but wealth changed hands rapidly. Fortunes running 
over a million were won. The losses made less impression 
because, owing to various kinds of insurance, they actually 
did not fall with corresponding heaviness upon individuals. 
Most avenues of trade, however, were closed, and par- 
ticularly the ordinary unromantic routes. The severest 
blow was the cutting-off of the coast trade, changed con- 
which had been steadily growing since the end ^^^^°^^ ^ ^814 
of the Revolution, and which alone had escaped the dead 
hand of the embargo. The Newfoundland fisheries also 
were closed. With the fall of Napoleon in the spring of 
1814, England, on the day after her final peace with France, 
shut up the United States so completely that during that 
summer her commerce was represented on the ocean by 
nothing but some forty or fifty privateers. 

1 G. S. Kimball, Correspondence of WiUiam Pitt . . . vyith Colonial Gov- 
ernors, 2 vols.. New York, etc., 1906. 



178 AMERICAN DIPLOMACY 

To the West, which had wanted the war, it brought both 
satisfaction and disappointment. The Indians were thor- 
Westem cam- oughly and, as it proved, finally overwhelmed, 
paigns both to the south in the battle of Horseshoe 

Bend, and to the north in the battle of Thames. This latter 
result, however, was not due to the unassisted efforts of the 
frontiersmen themselves, as Clay had boasted that it would 
be. The navy, which after a brilliant and important struggle 
had been driven from the ocean, sent of its personnel to the 
lakes, where, in the battles of Lake Erie and Lake Cham- 
plain, it established a control, which it continued to main- 
tain, over all the border lakes except Ontario, where neither 
side obtained supremacy. Even with this assistance Upper 
Canada remained unconquered. The western leaders had 
overlooked one element in the situation, — the people of the 
region which is now Ontario. The nucleus of this sturdy 
population consisted of American loyalists and their de- 
scendants. Hearty in their hatred of the United States, they 
were situated nearer the strategic points than were the Amer- 
icans, and they afforded a substantial support to the British 
troops, which until 1814 were none too numerous. After 
the release of Wellington's veterans by the closing of the 
European wars, conquest by the Americans was of course 
out of question. In fact, in that year the British held points 
on American soil all along the northern boundary. ^ 

While these events were taking place negotiations for 
peace were in progress.^ It was displeasing to the czar that, 
Russia offers just when Napoleon was invading Russia to 
mediation ^j^^^ ^ler ports to American trade, the United 

States should go to war with Great Britain, his friend and 
leading ally. He, therefore, September 21, 1812, offered 

1 C. P. Lucas, The Canadian War of 1812. Oxford, 1906. 

' For the peace negotiations, the Memoirs of J. Q. Adams, and the Writ- 
ings of Gallatin are the most valuable and interesting sources, taken, of 
course, in connection with the official dispatches in the American State 
Papers, Foreign Relations. The best historical account is that in the last 
chapter of Mahan's Sea Power in its Rdatiotis to the War of 1812. 



PEACE 179 

mediation, and Adams at once sent word of the offer to 
Washington. It reached there with the news of Napoleon's 
reverses. We had bet on the wrong horse. We had care- 
fully refrained from allying ourselves with Napoleon, but 
the fact that he too was fighting England had undoubtedly 
lent us courage. Madison did not relish the idea of carrying 
on the war alone. Indeed, there was no reason why he should 
not negotiate, or why he should not accept the mediation of 
Russia, whose useful friendship our commerce had experi- 
enced. The offer was therefore accepted, March 11, 1813, 
and a mission was appointed consisting of Albert Gallatin 
and Adams of the administration party, and James A. 
Bayard, a Federalist. 

When Gallatin and Bayard reached Europe they found the 
offer of mediation rejected by England. Although Great 
Britain and Russia were united in fighting Russia versus 
Napoleon, their ideas did not harmonize on ^'■^** Britain 
many other subjects. Particularly on those involved in the 
dispute between Great Britain and the United States were 
they poles apart, Russia clinging to the pronouncements of 
Catharine's Armed Neutrality, England to the principles 
that had so long controlled her conduct. "Maritime law!" 
said Lord Walpole at one time to Adams. "Why, Russia 
may fight us till she sinks, and she will get no maritime law 
from us; that is no change in the maritime law. Maritime 
law submitted to the Congress! What can there be upon 
earth more absurd?" Alexander, moreover, became less 
intent upon pressing the matter as the allies became more 
successful and it was seen that the weight of America was 
not sufficient to prevent the balance tipping against Na- 
poleon. Mediation failed. 

On July 13, 1813, Castlereagh offered to negotiate directly. 
This offer, made while victory in Europe was still undeter- 
mined, was eagerly accepted by Madison after the defeat 
of Napoleon in the campaigns of that year had become pat- 
ent. He added to the American commission Henry Clay to 



180 AMERICAN DIPLOMACY 

represent the West, and Jonathan Russell, who had served in 
France. After some troublesome preliminaries it was ar- 
Opening of ne- ranged that the negotiations take place at Ghent, 
gotiations ^^le two commissions were well chosen and rep- 

resentative. On the British side Lord Gambler was an ad- 
miral, Henry Goulburn was member of Parliament and under- 
secretary for the colonies, and William Adams was a doctor 
of law. Expert and skilful as they were, however, they were 
no match for the American commissioners. Three of these, 
Gallatin, Bayard, and Clay, were without diplomatic ex- 
perience, but Gallatin and Clay, with Adams, were among 
the ablest half-dozen men of our country. They were thor- 
oughly at home in handling American questions; they were 
used to dealing with men; and they had an intellectual power 
and a driving force which utterly overshadowed that of their 
opponents. England was at the disadvantage of having her 
best talent diverted to the more important Congress of 
Vienna, but even her delegation there could not have over- 
matched the Americans at Ghent. Though Adams was the 
head of the American commission, Gallatin was its most 
influential member. A French Swiss by birth and education, 
and of noble family, he was regarded by Europeans as one of 
themselves, familiar with their standards and mode of life, 
a solace in their intercourse with the, if not untutored at 
least differently tutored, Americans. At the most critical 
moment of the negotiation the duke of Wellington did not 
hesitate to write to him privately of his wish for peace. 
Gallatin acted as mediator between the members of the 
commission and between the commission as a whole and 
European public men.^ 

Our best efforts were indeed needed. England was at her 
pinnacle. The Times, in June, 1814, when Gallatin and 
Bayard were in London, said: "Having disposed of all our 
enemies in Europe, let us have no cant of moderation. There 

' A Great Peace Maker, the Diary of James Gallatin, New York, 1914, 
34-35. 



PEACE 181 

is no public feeling in the country stronger than that of 
indignation against the Americans. As we urged the 
principle of no peace with Bonaparte, so we English opin- 
must maintain the doctrine of no peace with '°° 
James Madison." The same paper, announcing the American 
victory at Plattsburg, said, October 14, 1814: "This is a 
lamentable event to the civilized world. The subversion of 
the whole system of the Jeffersonian school . . . was an 
event to which we should have bent and yet must bend all 
our energies. The present American government must be 
displaced, or it will sooner or later plant its poisoned dagger 
in the heart of the parent state." Again it declared, "Mr. 
Madison's dirty swindling manoeuvers in respect to Louisiana 
and the Floridas remain to be punished." The British were 
at this time in Spanish Florida; they threatened Mobile; and 
throughout the negotiations news was awaited of the fleet 
and the army under Pakenham which was advancing upon 
New Orleans. Louisiana had as yet but a small American 
population, it was isolated from the settled West, and the 
loyalty of its Creoles was in doubt. It seemed possible, 
therefore, that the mouth of the Mississippi might be lost 
and all the attendant problems once more arise. 

More definite was the danger to the northward. The 
Canadian Gazette insisted that the United States surrender 
the northern part of New York State, so as The "buffer 
to give Canada both banks of the St. Lawrence ^***® 
and of the Niagara. It insisted also on a guaranteed buffer 
Indian country, bounded toward the United States by a 
line from Sandusky to Kaskaskia. This old idea, which 
Hammond had been instructed to act upon in 1792, was 
now being continually urged upon the British ministry. 
Tackle wrote to Lord Bathurst, November 24, 1812, suggest- 
ing that the Indian territory extend to the Maumee and the 
Wabash. "It would be, in my feeble judgment," he urged, 
"if occupied exclusively by Indians, an all important barrier 
to the designs of the United States against the influence, 



182 AMERICAN DIPLOIVIACY 

and intercourse of the British, with the immense regions 
extending Westerly even to the Pacific Ocean." The fur- 
traders and the Indians had fought well during the war, 
the latter especially had suffered; now both demanded that 
protection which they had persistently been claiming from 
the British government since 1783. 

Under these circumstances, Castlereagh issued his in- 
structions, July 28, 1814. Maritime law was not to be 
The rival in- touched. The boundary should be "rectified" 
structions ^^ ^^ gj^^ ^^^ British a road from Halifax to 

Quebec, with Sackett's harbor to command the St. Lawrence, 
Fort Niagara to command the river of the same name, and 
Moose island and Eastport to command the mouth of the 
St. Croix. The Indians should be included in the treaty, 
and should be assured of a mutually guaranteed boundary, — 
that fixed by Wayne's treaty of 1795. The United States 
must give up its privileges in the fisheries, and the naviga- 
tion of the lakes; England, having access to the Mississippi 
through the Indian country, must continue to enjoy its 
navigation. The American instructions, prepared by Mon- 
roe, January 14, 1814, were to obtain first of all an acknowl- 
edgment of the American position on points of maritime law, 
though a compromise was suggested on the subject of im- 
pressment whereby Great Britain was to yield the right 
and the United States was to forbid British born sailors to 
serve in American vessels. Indemnity was to be secured for 
illegal captures. The commissioners were to urge "the ad- 
vantages to both countries which arc promised by a transfer 
of the upi)er parts and even the whole of Canada to the 
United States," and were to point out that experience had 
shown that Great Britain could not "participate in the 
dominion and navigation of the lakes without incurring the 
danger of an early renewal of the war." 

These differences seemed to preclude the possibility of 
agreement, especially since the British terms were presented 
in the form of an ultimatum. On August 24, the American 



PEACE 183 

commissioners returned a " unanimous and decided negative," 
in a very able vote setting forth that the English claims were 
"founded neither on reciprocity, nor any of the 
usual bases of negotiation, neither that of uti 
possedetis nor of status quo ante helium." Openly, but not 
hastily, they prepared to leave Ghent. While thus delaying 
they talked much with the British commissioners, par- 
ticularly in regard to the buffer state. Gallatin asked what 
would become of the hundred thousand Americans already 
living within the boundary proposed. Goulburn, perhaps 
hearing of them for the first time, thought that the line 
might be slightly changed, but that on the whole the Ameri- 
cans could shift for themselves : the Indians would treat them 
well; he knew an Indian who was very intelligent. Adams 
said that such a treaty provision was opposing a feather 
to a torrent. Population, he declared, was increasing: "As 
it continued to increase in such proportions, was it in human 
experience, or in human power, to check its progress by a 
bond of paper purporting to exclude posterity from the 
natural means of subsistence?" Bayard, the Federalist, told 
Goulburn that, when it became known that the negotiation 
had broken off on such terms, the Federalist party in the 
United States would be overwhelmed. 

In the end the Americans succeeded in making an impres- 
sion on the British commissioners, and through them on 
the ministry. Since England had been put _ . 
in the position of continuing the war for con- peace in Eng- 
quest, the ministry became satisfied that if 
the negotiations ended at this point the war would become 
"quite popular" in America. "It is very material," they 
said, "to throw the rupture of the negotiations, if it take 
place, upon the Americans." It was, indeed, feared that the 
war might become unpopular in England: the Times did 
not represent the whole nation. The same elements of 
distress which, anxious for the American market, had all 
too late forced the recall of the orders in council, would be 



184 AMERICAN DIPLOMACY 

little inclined to forego their trade much longer for remote 
accessions of territory in the wilds of America. The minis- 
try, moreover, was full of anxiety over the wrangles of the 
late allies at the Congress of Vienna, where events were 
rapidly shaping themselves for a new European alignment, — 
England, France, and Austria against Russia and Prussia — 
and a new war. Moved by these considerations, it sent new 
instructions to Ghent, September 1. Far from satisfactory 
in themselves, these new terms put the British in the awk- 
ward position of having retreated from an ultimatum. The 
American commissioners were quick to take advantage of 
this weakness. They refused to treat on the proposed new 
basis of uii possedetis, that is to say the situation then exist- 
ing. Under these circumstances the duke of Wellington 
was asked if he would go to America. He expressed his 
willingness, but declared that nothing could be accomplished 
whUe the Americans held the lakes, and said that England 
was not justified by the military situation in demanding any 
territory. The ministry once more receded, and offered to 
negotiate on the basis of status quo ante helium, or the con- 
dition before the war. Indeed, it is diflScult to see how they 
could do anything else. If they doubted the support of 
public opinion in demanding important posts and a buffer 
state, they could scarcely expect it in fighting for the ap- 
parently trivial bits of American territory which they were 
holding in 1814. 

On the other hand, the American commissioners found that 
in insisting on an adjustment of maritime law they ran into 

the stone-wall of British determination. For- 
Mantime law , . , 

tunately, however, they were mstructed from 

America, where Madison was oppressed by the impending 
British attack on New Orleans, the harrying of the coast 
and burning of Washington, and the prospect of the Hart- 
ford convention, to omit such clauses from the treaty if 
necessary. 

With these points out of the way, negotiations progressed 



PEACE 185 

rapidly. On the question of fisheries, it is true, the Amer- 
ican commission divided. Adams and Russell wished to re- 
state the terms of 1783, which meant that the ^. , . 

Fishenes ver- 

British right to navigate the Mississippi must sus the Mis- 
be conceded also. Clay, mindful of the use- 
fulness of that river to the British fur-traders, and afraid 
that such a right would be used by Great Britain to back a 
claim for territorial access to the Mississippi by pushing 
south the northern boundary of the Louisiana Purchase, was 
unwilling to admit the privilege. Finally, at Gallatin's 
suggestion, both points were omitted, and on December 24, 
1814, the treaty was signed. 

Great triumph of American diplomacy as the treaty was 
in the light of the British instructions, yet, considered from 
the point of view that the Americans began the Gains and 
war to obtain satisfaction for what they con- ^°sses 
sidered infractions of maritime law, it registered a defeat. 
It is more important, however, to note that from 1815 until 
the present year (1914), Great Britain was at war with 
European powers for only three years (1853 to 1856), and 
so the treaty marked the end of our suffering as neutrals 
from her exactions for a hundred years. The West more 
nearly obtained what it wanted. The treaty provided: 
"The United States engage to put an end, immediately after 
the ratification of the present treaty, to hostilities with all 
the tribes or nations of Indians," on the basis of 1812, if 
they should agree. No provision guaranteed these bound- 
aries, however, and though the United States continued to 
press- them westward, Great Britain never after meddled in 
the matter. The Indian power east of the Mississippi was 
broken, and never again within the United States did any 
Indians play a part as a factor in American diplomacy. The 
general restoration of property, moreover, included the rais- 
ing of the United States flag over the post of Astoria, al- 
though the property title to it had passed into the hands 
of the British Northwestern Company, to be absorbed later 



186 AMERICAN DIPLOMACY 

into the Great, or Hudson Bay, Company. By this recogni- 
tion was added a third link to our claim to Oregon, 

The treaty provided also for the settlement of the numer- 
ous points of dispute that had arisen regarding the exact 
Boundary location of the boundary between Canada and 

commissions ^^^ United States. Once more, as in the case 
of the Jay treaty, these questions were to be determined by 
semi-judicial process, — that is, by commissions of two mem- 
bers each, or, if the commissions failed to agree, by arbitra- 
tion. Four such commissions were arranged for. The first 
one was to divide the islands in Passamaquoddy Bay, in 
submitting one of which, Moose island, to question, the 
Americans suffered the only defeat, so far as details were 
concerned, in the framing of the treaty. This commission 
worked satisfactorily on the whole, although the final water 
boundary was not determined until an arbitration of 1908. 
Another commission ultimately fixed the boundary from 
the crossing of the forty -fifth parallel and the St. Lawrence 
through Lake Huron. The problems of the boundary from 
the St. Croix to the St. Lawrence and from Lake Huron to 
the Lake of the Woods proved too complicated; the com- 
missions charged with them failed to agree, and subsequent 
arbitration was unsuccessful. Nevertheless, another long 
step had been taken in clearing up the ambiguities and 
vagueness of the treaty of 1783. 

From the peace of Ghent the United States emerged, not 
a "great power" in the conventional sense, but a n.ation of 
Our position in assured position. Thereafter our strengtli was 
^®^^ sufficient for our defence, and our safety ceased 

to depend on the oscillations of the European balance of 
power. The way was open for us to enter into the European 
ai • t system as a participating member, or to pursue 
ence and terri- our owTi path without serious molestation. 
°^ There were just as many unsettled stretches of 

our boundary as in 1783, but their vagueness was now an ad- 
vantage to our growing power rather than a danger. The 



PEACE 187 

area of dispute, moreover, had been pushed back and our ter- 
ritory was much more self-sufficing than it had been. We had 
secured the outlet of our greatest river, and we actually pos- 
sessed the mouths of nearly all those flowing from our terri- 
tory into the Gulf of Mexico. The great western expanse of 
the Louisiana Purchase assured us that the Mississippi was 
destined to become what a river should be, a magnet to unite 
and not a boundary to divide. Had we rested where we were 
in 1815 our destiny as a great nation would have been cer- 
tain; but we were already pushing our claims across the 
mountains to the Pacific, and it required no great prophetic 
power to foresee that our forty-five degrees of longitude 
would irresistibly grasp the almost uninhabited ten degrees 
of the Pacific slope. 

Our commerce for years had been abnormal, and was for 
the moment almost swept from the seas; international law 
had been so strained and broken by twenty commerce and 
years of ceaseless strife that one might have international 
feared that two centuries of development in 
the regulation of international relationships would be lost 
and anarchy return. A world-wide readjustment must fol- 
low the overthrow of Napoleon, and we must share in it. 
Fortunately, we were increasingly producing things that 
other nations needed, besides affording a growing market 
for their products. Fortunately, too, we entered into the 
new era of negotiation free from entangling agreements, and 
with a remarkably consistent record of action in the past 
from which we could develop policies for the future. 



CHAPTER XVI 
COMMERCE AND BOUNDARIES 

The period from the treaty of Ghent to the inauguration 
of Jackson is notable for the continuity and the brilliancy of 
The diplomat- our diplomatic service. In 1817 Monroe, hav- 
ic service -j^g j^ggjj secretary of state, became President. 

Unsuccessful in all his early diplomatic undertakings except 
the purchase of Louisiana, which was in no wise due to him, 
he had nevertheless an experience dating back to 1793, and 
he showed improvement.^ 

But, although the responsibility was Monroe's, the burden 
fortunately fell on John Quincy Adams. As a boy Adams had 
Characteristics known the diplomatic circles of Paris and St. 
of Adams Petersburg. From 1795 to 1801 he had con- 

ducted negotiations with England, Holland, Prussia, and 
Sweden. At the close of his work at Ghent, he became minis- 
ter to Great Britain, to return home in 1817 as secretary 
of state, an office which he retained until his elevation to the 
presidency in 1825. Although perhaps not intended by 
nature for a career in diplomacy, by intellect and industry 
he forced himself ahead of all his contemporaries and made 
fundamental contributions to American diplomacy on n 
I)ar with those of Franklin, Washington, his father John 
Adams, and Hay. Unprofitably obstinate and exacting, 
and without personal charm, he had a more comprehensive 
view of our national future than any of his associates, a 
view somewhat obscured in later life, it is true, when his 
emotions were stirred by his opposition to slavery and his 
imagination by his fear of the slavocracy. His chief opponent 

» Monroe, Writings, 7 vols, N. Y., 1898-1903. 
188 



COMMERCE AND BOUNDARIES 189 

was George Canning, after 1822 foreign minister of Great 
Britain. Both players of consummate ability, Adams 
showed perhaps more genius. Canning more 
adaptability. If neither definitely triumphed 
over the other, at least neither lost tricks; each won when 
he held the cards. '^ 

Of subordinates, Gallatin gained golden opinions during 
his mission to France from 1816 to 1823, and served as 
minister to England in 1826 and 1827.^ Clay, 
as Adams remarks, had been much influenced 
by his residence abroad on the peace commission. With his 
ready adaptability he had added a polish of manner to his 
natural magnetism, and had acquired interest 
in foreign affairs and a broad, if somewhat 
superficial, knowledge of them. Disappointed at not re- 
ceiving the state department in 1817, he was for years 
a thorn in the side of the administration; but during 
his service as secretary of state, from 1825 to 1829, 
he was a sympathetic coadjutor of Adams. Richard 

Rush and Rufus King, ministers to England 

. ,„,_, -.^^^ 1-11 Rush and King 

irom 1817 to 1825, were highly competent 

representatives of the country.^ In general, indeed, the 

service had begun to attract men of a high class, and the 

administration was willing to employ them. 

This condition was both a cause and a result of the higher 

standing which the United States had taken in the world's 

estimation. Perhaps no one thing had con- Enhanced 

tributed more to this added prestige than the P^'^stige 

glorious, though apparently futile, record of our navy in the 

war. Not since the French Revolution beheaded the naval 

officers of the old regime had the British found rivals able to 

stand before them on any basis approaching equality. The 

1 J. Q. Adams, Memoirs, 12 vols., Phila., 1874-77. H. W. V. Temperley, 
Life of Canning, London, 1905. 

2 Gallatin, Writings, 3 vols., Phila., 1879. 

' Richard Rush, Memoranda of a Residence at the Court of London, Phila- 
delphia, 1833; C. R. King, Life and Correspondence of Rufus King, 6 vols. 



190 AMERICAN DIPLOMACY 

successful naval duels fought by the Constitution, the Wasp, 
and the United States, to say nothing of the battles on the 
lakes, amazed Europe. England sought to minimize this 
impression by pointing to inequalities in the strength of the 
vessels, and by claiming the crews as renegade Englishmen; 
but she failed to shake their effect. The potential strength 
of the American navy, and the actual strength of the mer- 
chant marine on which it rested, gained us a hearing at every 
court. ^ 

The problems that engaged the attention of the govern- 
ment during this period were less vital than those which 
Decline of occupied our diplomacy before 1815, and conse- 

Commerce quently attracted less public interest. To a 

large degree our long-sought isolation had been attained. 
The European situation was also less absorbing, and our 
growth had rendered us less malleable to European intrigues. 
Moreover, Jefferson's restrictive policy had hastened the 
same natural process here which Napoleon's continental 
system had brought about in Europe. Manufacturing had 
developed. We were less dependent upon foreign imports, 
and our own markets consumed a greater proportion of our 
agricultural products. We were approaching more nearly 
to an economic equilibrium, and commerce was not so im- 
portant to us as it had been. Our diplomacy was less in- 
teresting and less vital, and it was conducted under less 
pressure. 

The treaty of Ghent had so rigidly excluded contentious 
matters that many subjects were left to the future. This 
Continuation was on the whole to the advantage of the 
^th"^ G«at°" United States. In fact, the statesmen of the 
Britain rising generation, conscious of our steadily 

growing power and not confronted by the pressing necessity 
of the Confederation and early constitutional periods, were 
usually ready to let issues drag, confidently believing that 

' C. F. Adams, "Wednesday. August 19, 1812, 6:30 p. M. the Birth of a 
World Power," Amer. Ilist. Review, 1913, xviii. 513-521. 



COMMERCE AND BOUNDARIES 191 

time was working with them. The settlement of many of 
these problems, however, was not long delayed; for the treaty 
proved to be not the end of agreement, but merely the first 
step toward it. 

In 1817 Bagot, the British minister at Washington, and 
Richard Rush, the acting secretary of state, exchanged 
notes dealing with the navigation of the Great use of the 
Lakes. This simple arrangement provided for ^^^^ 
the maintenance of small and equal armed forces by the two 
j)owers. Although revocable at six months' notice, it has, 
adjusted to meet the changing conditions of ship-construction 
and revenue patrol, lasted to the present time.^ 

A disagreement arose over the interpretation of the treaty 
of Ghent. The Americans claimed that its provision for the 
return of property of all kinds included slaves, indemnity for 
many of whom had been taken on board by s^*^®^ 
British war vessels in the Chesapeake and elsewhere; Great 
Britain, on the contrary, maintained that they ceased to be 
slaves on entering a British war vessel and so could not be 
returned. By a convention of 1818 this question was sub- 
mitted to a true arbitration by the emperor of Russia, who 
decided that we could claim indemnification but not restitu- 
tion. In accordance with this decision, a new claims conven- 
tion was framed in 1822, by which we ultimately received 
nearly a million and a quarter dollars in compensation. The 
demand for the restitution of slaves taken at the close of the 
Revolution was not pressed. 

A more disturbing question was that of the status of 
previous agreements between the two nations. The eflfect of 
a war upon earlier treaties is a subject which Effect of war 
had not then, and indeed has not yet, been o^^ treaties 
reduced to rule. The courts of this country and of others 
have continued to enforce provisions respecting individual 
rights established under earlier treaties, though this does not 

^ J. M. Callahan, Agreement of 1817; Reduction of Naval Forces upon the 
American Lakes, Amer. Hist. Assoc, Report, 1895, pp. 369-392. 



192 AMERICAN DIPLOMACY 

include a recognition of the power to create fresh rights from 
the provisions of an earlier treaty after a war has intervened. 
Again, many treaties contain provisions relating to conduct 
during hostilities which would be meaningless were they 
supposed to lapse with a declaration of war. Special priv- 
ileges and arrangements, on the other hand, are commonly un- 
derstood so to lapse. In discussing this problem, Adams was 
particularly anxious to obtain recognition of the rights and 
privileges accorded to American fishermen on the coast of 
British America by the treaty of 1783. The British held that 
these clauses had ceased to operate; consequently fifteen 
hundred New England vessels previously employed in this 
occupation were now barred from it. Adams could not 
press his point as he might have wished; for we on our part 
treated as void the permanent clause of the Jay treaty giving 
mutual privileges in the fur trade, by passing, April 29, 1816, 
an act forbidding licences for trade with the Indians to any 
except United States citizens, unless by special permission 
of the President. Adams attempted to draw a distinction 
between the two treaties, on the ground that the first "was 
not, in the general provisions, one of those which, by the 
common understanding and usage of civilized nations, is or 
can be considered as annulled by a subsequent war." This 
Lord Bathurst denied; but he admitted that this treaty, 
"like many others, contained provisions of different charac- 
ter — some in their own nature irrevocable, and others of a 
temporary character." 

Upon this basis the convention of 1818 dealt with the 
question. The "right" of Americans to fish off the Banks of 
_, . Newfoundland, " acknowledged " by the treaty 

1818 and the of 1783, remained acknowledged; the "liber- 
ties," however, were treated as void, and a 
substitute arrangement was entered into. This contract 
gave us the right to take fish within the three-mile limit on 
the coast of Labrador and certain specified coasts of New- 
foundland, and to use for drying fish the same shores so long 



COMMERCE AND BOUNDARIES 193 

as they remained unsettled. Our fishermen might also use 
the settled harbors "for the purpose of shelter and of repair- 
ing damages therein, of purchasing wood, and of obtaining 
water, and for no other purpose whatever." But, runs the 
treaty, "they shall be under such restrictions as may be 
necessary to prevent their taking, drying or curing fish 
therein, or in any other manner whatever abusing the priv- 
ileges hereby reserved to them." 

Under this convention, which is still in force, the American 
fishermen at once resumed their occupation. In spite of 
its apparently hberal provisions, however, the 
document proved to be a Pandora's box of lems of the 
discords, and its ambiguities have been sources 
of dispute almost to the present day. There were stretches 
of coast where we wished to fish which were not included in 
the treaty definition. Here we certainly could not encroach 
within the three-mile limit, but it was not certain what the 
three-mile limit meant. Great Britain insisted that a number 
of bays, even though their mouths exceeded six miles across, 
were closed waters; and we desired to use the Gut of Canso, 
separating Nova Scotia from the island of Cape Breton, 
although it was less than six miles broad. The important, 
almost necessary, privilege of purchasing bait was not men- 
tioned in the treaty and was often denied, as was that also of 
using the harbors for transshipment of fish from one vessel 
to another. 

The local port regulations admitted of being made very 
burdensome, and the spirit to make them so developed, for 
the rivalry between American and Canadian Fishermen's 
fishermen became constantly keener. Hereto- "^*^«s 
fore the Canadians had had the best of it, for the most 
important common market for both countries, the British 
West Indies, had been regulated to their advantage. Now 
the United States was developing into the most important 
market, and here the Americans had the aid of tariff protec- 
tion. They also received bounties from the national govern- 



194 AMERICAN DIPLOMACY 

ment, as an offset to the duty on the salt they used and in 
recognition of the fisheries as a "nursery of seamen." The 
less fortunate Canadians were eager to embarrass the Ameri- 
cans by disagreeable regulations, but they were not unwilling 
to sell them fish, upon which many Americans unblushingly 
collected bounties and which they sold at prices enhanced by 
the tariff.^ 

A somewhat similar question, which can hardly be said 
ever to have risen to the surface of diplomacy, related to the 

annuities granted by the United States, in 
Indian claims i. x t i i . • . -i 

payment lor Indian lands, to certam tribes 

which subsequently removed to Canada. Although paid 
before the war, the annuities were discontinued afterwards, 
and are now (1914) the subject of arbitration. 

The most important unsettled question, however, though 
not of so immediate concern as the fisheries, was that of 
Northwestern boundary. At the "most northwestern point 
boundary ^f ^^le Lake of the Woods" the dividing line 

between the two nations vanished into thin air. The direc- 
tion of the treaty of 1783 to continue a line westward until 
it struck the Mississippi could not be carried out, as such a 
line would not strike the Mississippi. Perhaps the most 
logical thing would have been to draw the shortest line to that 
point, but there was no entirely obvious course. Moreover, 
the matter had been further complicated by our purchase of 
Louisiana, which had no northern boundary. Finally, how- 
ever, the two questions were combined and settled in the 
convention of 1818, by the dropping of a line due south from 
the termination of the boundary to the forty-ninth parallel, 
along which it continued westward to the "Stony," or, as we 
say, Rocky Mountains. This adjustment was eminently 
satisfactory, as it gave us almost exactly the natural drainage 
basin of the Mississippi, which practically constituted our 
claim by the Louisiana purchase. Although some commun- 

* Raymond McFarland, A History of the New England Fitheriet, New 
York, 1911. 



COMMERCE AND BOUNDARIES 195 

ities along the northern border might to-day be somewhat 
better accommodated had the natural line been followed, the 
national area would not be noticeably different, and the 
national temper would have been many times tried, and 
might have been lost, in the attempt to locate it. Astro- 
nomical boundaries have the advantage of being ascer- 
tained by mechanical rather than by human instruments, 
although, as we shall discover, astronomers may themselves 
go wrong. 

The obscuration of the Mississippi by this line, which left 
it entirely within United States territory, gave a curious and 
final twist to the problem of its navigation, _, 
until then a perennial question. Had the tion of the 
Mississippi taken its rise in British territory, ' *^ '^^* 
the clause of the treaty of 1783 giving Great Britain its free 
use must probably have been interpreted as on a par with 
that giving us the "right" to fish on the Banks. As the river 
lay wholly in our territory, however, we successfully asserted 
that the clause in question lapsed with the one that gave us 
fishing "liberties." Subsequent discovery, it is true, has 
shown that the Milk river and a few other branches of the 
Missouri do rise in Canada; but their navigation will scarcely 
serve to revive the question, although their use for irrigation 
is perhaps not without diplomatic significance. 

In the same convention a fourth link was added to our 
claim to the Oregon country by Great Britain's recognition 
of our pretensions to it. Neither side ac- joint occupa- 
knowledged more than the fact that the other *^°° °^ ^''^eon 
had a claim, and it was agreed that the subjects of both might 
for ten years jointly use the whole region. 

With the convention of 1818 practically all the immediate 
and special questions between the United States and Great 
Britain had been put in process of settlement. Permanent 
The issues that remained were for the most part 's^"®^ 
in the nature of permanent conflicts of interest and opinion, 
which do not admit of final determination. 



196 AMERICAN DIPLOMACY 

Of these, commercial intercourse was the most important. 
The commercial problem of diplomacy was now less than 
Commercial previously one of opening up markets for our 
conditions goods. Our fish, that bone of contention, we 

were coming to eat ourselves; most of the rest were raw 
materials eminently desired by other countries. England 
had a small duty on our cotton, but it was soon removed 
because of internal policy. The foreign products that we 
handled, as tea from Asia, occasioned more difficulty. The 
main problem, however, was to protect and encourage the 
employment of our vessels. For years Great Britain and the 
United States, the former under the protection of her navy, 
the latter as the sole important neutral, had almost monop- 
olized the world's shipping. Both suffered from the peace. 
The neutral trade had been a constant source of embarrass- 
ment, but now there was no neutral trade. Our feelings were 
relieved, but we suffered in pocket. The vessels of other 
countries came out of their seclusion, and their governments 
sought to encourage and favor them. One result of this 
general revival of interest in navigation was that at length, 
and with difficulty, international cooperation was brought to 
bear on the Barbary states, till by degrees that pest was 
wiped out and the Mediterranean was opened to all nations. 
We did not join in the cooperation, which was under the 
direction of the quadruple alliance; but we sent a squadron 
there, and we shared the advantages.^ 

Our method of favoring the merchant marine rested on 
Jefferson's idea of commercial discrimination. It was em- 
Commercial bodied in what was called a policy of reciprocity 
policy ^,}^jp}^ ^j^g ^5j^j,gj Qj^ ^^ j^Pl- Qf March 3, 1815, 

providing for the abolition of all discriminations against 
foreign vessels in our ports in the case of those nations who 
would reciprocally abolish their discriminating duties. The 
execution of this policy was to be by means of diplomacy. On 
this basis, a convention was in the same year arranged with 
^ Moore, American Diplomacy, 63-130. 



COMMERCE AND BOUNDARIES 197 

Great Britain which included her European possessions and 
enumerated ports in the East Indies, but which applied only 
to goods that were the produce of the respective countries 
or colonies involved. In 1822 a somewhat similar conven- 
tion was arranged with France. In 1826 a treaty with Den- 
mark, in 1827 treaties with the Hanse towns, Hamburg, 
Liibeck, and Bremen, and with the kingdoms of Sweden and 
Norway, and in 1828 a treaty with Prussia opened up com- 
plete reciprocity in all kinds of goods. By an act of 1828 
the President was authorized to abolish such discriminating 
dues by proclamation alone in the case of any country where 
he should become convinced that a similar freedom was 
offered to American vessels. Under this law successive proc- 
lamations gradually admitted one country after another to 
reciprocity. The discriminations of 1789 disappeared, but 
with them disappeared also the countervailing discrimina- 
tions of other countries. 

One demand was for an agreement concerning British 
North America. With the extinction of the permanent 
clauses of the Jay treaty vanished the right The St. Law- 
which it gave to Vermont and northern New ^^^^^ 
York to take their goods to Montreal and Quebec.^ The 
loss of this privilege did not destroy the trade, which con- 
tinued to be allowed under British regulations till 1822; but 
no permanent agreement could be reached. Great Britain 
wished to blend the matter with the general question of 
colonial trade; the United States insisted on our natural 
right to navigate to the sea a river on which we bordered. 
We were as unable to obtain a recognition of this principle 
from Great Britain as we had been to secure the assent of 
Spain in the case of the Mississippi, and a deadlock ensued. 
Fortunately, the completion of canals from Lake Champlain 
to the Hudson and from Lake Erie to the Erie canal un- 
bottled those districts, and so diminished the importance 
of the question. 

^ Schuyler, American Diplomacy, 282-291. 



198 AMERICAN DIPLOMACY 

The old question of trade with the West Indies continued 
to be the most vexing issue between the two governments. 
The British Here again it was our shipping and not our 
West Indies exports that caused trouble. Under the reci- 
procity convention of 1815 British vessels brought British 
goods to the United States, took aboard United States prod- 
ucts needed in the West Indies, and there exchanged them 
for island products which they took to England. The Amer- 
ican ships, on the contrary, were in general barred from the 
islands, and even in the direct trade with England they felt 
the competition of the British vessels, which in the greater 
flexibility of their opportunity enjoyed a substantial ad- 
vantage. 

Though loath to do so, the United States submitted to 
the exclusion from the trade between the colonies and Great 
Policy of the Britain, but she insisted on the privilege of 
United States carrying on trade between the colonies and 
countries mutually foreign. Believing that her products 
were so essential to the existence of the West Indian colonies 
that she could force her own terms by prohibiting trade there 
entirely, she passed acts to that effect in 1818 and 1820, with 
the qualification that the President was to suspend them 
when he was convinced that their object had been attained. 
In 1822 they were in part suspended pending further nego- 
tiations under a new British act. 

Meanwhile, under the leadership of Pluskisson, who in 
1823 became president of the Board of Trade, Great Britain 
Change in Brit- was undergoing a change of heart, or at least 
ish pohcy qJ mind, on the subject of the navigation Uim's. 

The old system was breaking down, but, like all other British 
institutions, it did not break down suddenly. The ultimate 
result, ultimate that is for this period, of the change in British 
policy was reached in the acts of June 27 and July 5, 1825, 
which opened the colonies to the direct trade of all nations, 
that is, to trade in the products of the colony and of the na- 
tion to which the vessel employed belonged. The traffic 



COMMERCE AND BOUNDARIES 199 

between the colonies and Great Britain was retained as 
"coasting trade" for British vessels, as was all indirect trade, 
as for instance, that in China tea by way of New York. 
Enjoyment of the benefits of the acts was to depend upon 
reciprocal advantages granted to Great Britain within the 
year. 

These terms seemed to offer an opportunity for a final 
settlement, but the United States would not take them as 
they stood, insisting on the right to take 
British West Indian goods to all countries ex- 
cept Great Britain. Accordingly, the year having expired 
before an agreement was reached. Great Britain withdrew her 
offer. Adams thereupon let the acts of 1818 and 1820 go once 
more into operation. The West Indian trade was therefore 
again absolutely closed, as to both products and shipping. 
Moreover, with the greater efficiency of governmental action, 
the laws were now so vigorously enforced that there was less 
commercial intercourse between the United States and the 
islands than ever before, whether in peace or in war. 

More important than these negotiations with Great Brit- 
ain concerning commerce were those with Spain in regard 
to boundaries. When in 1815 the Spanish Disputes with 
monarchy reemerged from the blanket of ^p*"^ 
French and English control, it found itself confronted by 
issues with the United States which would have excused a 
war had it been in a position to undertake one. Although 
Spain held title to West Florida, we occupied most of the 
province; furthermore, though Spain now accepted the 
validity of the Louisiana Purchase, its western limits were 
still undetermined. We, on our part, insisted upon the 
execution of a claims convention framed in 1802, we were 
fully of a mind to keep West Florida, and were equally de- 
termined to obtain East Florida. 

Our claim to the latter territory was inherently grounded 
in that "Manifest Destiny" which was to play so important 
a part in our history. More concretely, it was based on the 



200 AMERICAN DIPLOMACY 

argument that Spain was not able to take care of the coun- 
try, — on the self-constituted right of the stronger nations 
United States of the world to demand and enforce the 
claims elimination of international nuisances, an idea 

which succeeded "Manifest Destiny" as the chief diplomatic 
slogan of "imperial" statesmen. This argument found its 
justification in the use of East Florida by the British during 
the war of 1812, the use of Amelia island just south of Georgia 
by Spanish American privateers until a later period, and the 
mcursions of Florida Indians into the United States after 
cattle and slaves. 

The negotiations were conducted at Washington by 
Adams with Don Luis de Onis, whose titles fill nine lines 
of the treaty. They were assisted by the 
French minister, Baron Hyde de Neuville to 
whose tact success was in part due. The United States em- 
phasized its views in 1817 by ordering the temporary occupa- 
tion, for the suppression of piratical privateering, of Amelia 
island on the one side and Galveston on the other. More 
important were the orders given to General Andrew Jackson, 
commanding the southern department, to follow across the 
border, and chastise in their homes, any Indians marauding 
United States territory. Jackson, misconceiving the scope 
of his orders, invaded Florida in the winter of 1818, and not 
only dealt with the Indians but seized the Spanish forts of 
St. Marks and Pensacola, and hanged, after a court-martial, 
two Englishmen, Arbuthnot and Ambrister, who were ac- 
cused of assisting the Indians.^ 

This episode, which under other circumstances might have 

embroiled us with both Spain and England, Adams used to 

quicken the negotiation. Knowing that the latter country 

did not care to trouble itself over two cosmopolitan adven- 

^ H. B. Fuller, The Purchase of Florida, its History and Diplomacy, Cleve- 
land, 1906; James Schouler, Historical Briefs (New York, 1896), "Monroe 
and the Rhea Letter"; R. C. H. Catterall, A French Diplomat and the Treaty 
with Spain, 1819, Amer. Hist. Assoc, Report, 1905, i. 21; Frances Jackson, 
Memoir of Baron Hyde de Neuville, St. Louis, 1913. 



COMMERCE AND BOUNDARIES 201 

turers, he set up the claim that they had expatriated them- 
selves by their activities. To De Onis he wrote: "If, as the 
commanders both at Pensacola and St. Marks Adams de- 
have alleged, this has been the result of their *®°^^ Jackson 
weakness rather than their will; if they have assisted the 
Indians against the United States to avert their hostilities 
from the province which they have not sufficient force to 
defend against them, it may serve in some measure to ex- 
culpate, individually, those officers; but it must carry demon- 
stration irresistible to the Spanish government, that the right 
of the United States can as little compound with impotence 
as with perfidy, and that Spain must immediately make 
her election, either to place a force in Florida adequate at 
once to the protection of her territory, and to the fulfillment 
of her engagements, or cede to the United States a province, 
of which she retains nothing but the nominal possession, but 
which is, in fact, a derelict, open to the occupancy of every 
enemy, civilized or savage, of the United States, and serving 
no other earthly purpose than as a post of annoyance to them." 
Meantime the settlement of the western boundary was 
under discussion. We claimed to the Rio Grande, on the 
basis of French exploration under La Salle. The Texas 
Since, however. La Salle went there by mis- <i"estion 
take, and was intent upon leaving as rapidly as possible 
when he was murdered, the claim was lacking in convincing 
force. A slightly stronger basis for our claim is found in 
Napoleon's instructions to Victor in 1802 to occupy to that 
river, but of this instruction Adams did not know. Spain, 
on her part, claimed to the watershed of the Mississippi, a 
limit which would have brought her close to its mouth and 
made her an inconvenience if not a menace to its navigation. 
De Neuville suggested that Spain give up Florida and that 
Adams compromise to the westward. This the latter was 
unwilling to do, but he yielded to the pressure of Monroe 
and others, and, after discussing nearly every river of the 
coast, accepted the Sabine. Curiously, this boundary gave 



202 AMERICAN DIPLOMACY 

us more nearly what we had purchased than any other would 
have done; for although there had never been a western bound- 
ary to Louisiana, the most western French fort had been at 
Natchitoches, about forty miles east of the Sabine, and the 
most eastern Spanish post had been Nacogdoches, about the 
same distance to the west.^ The Sabine, moreover had been 
agreed upon as a temporary military boundary in 1806. 

In return for the cession of the Floridas we released Spain 
from all claims under the convention of 1802, which had just 
Terms of the been renewed, and agreed to assume the pay- 
treaty ment of them to the amount of five million 
dollars. The treaty resembled that relating to the purchase 
of Louisiana, in providing that "The inhabitants of the 
territories which His Catholic Majesty cedes to the United 
States, by this treaty, shall be incorporated in the Union of 
the United States, as soon as may be consistent with the 
principles of the Federal Constitution, and admitted to the 
enjoyment of all the privileges, rights, and immunities of the 
citizens of the United States." 

To Adams's mind, the most important provision of the 
treaty was that which described the boundary between the 
Boundary to United States and the possessions of Spain 
the Pacific north of the Sabine. This line zigzagged by 

rivers and parallels of latitude, until it followed the forty- 
second parallel to the Pacific. Instead, therefore, of com- 
pleting the bounding of Louisiana, it departed from that 
purchase and, running westward, created the first inter- 
national boundary-line that touched the western ocean. 
It thus added a fifth link to our claim to Oregon. 

The treaty was signed February 22, 1819, but its ratifica- 
tion was delayed both in the United States, because of op- 
position to the so-called surrender of Texas, 
Ratification , . ^ . , -c • 

and m Spam; so that ratmcations were not 

finally exchanged until February 22, 1821. 

' R. C. Clark, The Beginnings oj Texas, Texas Hist. Assoc., Quarterly, 
1902, V. 171-205. 



CHAPTER XVII 

THE MONROE DOCTRINE ^ 

The elevation of Joseph Bonaparte to the throne of Spain 
in 1808 snapped the worn bands that held her American colo- 
nies. Miranda was correct in his diagnosis of g 

sentiment in Spanish America. Innumerable American 

, , , , .11 1 • revolutions 

causes, local and general, preventable and m- 

evitable, had long nourished a discontent that but awaited 
an opportunity to manifest itself. In 1810 Miranda, who 
had of late been making his headquarters in the United 
States, lost his life in a tragic effort to start the blaze in his 
home province of Venezuela. In the same year a more 
successful beginning was made at Buenos Ayres by leaders 
who still professed loyalty to the Spanish nation, which also, 
with the fostering aid of England, was resisting the Bonapar- 
tist dynasty. When, however, in 1815 Ferdinand VII was 
restored, this loyalty disappeared; Buenos Ayres never per- 
mitted the exercise of his power, and soon the flames of 
revolt were sweeping over the continent. In 1822 the con- 
flagration raging northward from Buenos Ayres met, in 
Peru, that which Bolivar had kindled in Venezuela from the 
ashes of Miranda's movement. In 1821 Mexico had thrown 
off the yoke; and there was left of the Spanish empire almost 
nothing except an army in the heights of the Andes which 
was to succumb in 1824, and the islands of Cuba and Porto 
Rico. Brazil separated from Portugal in 1822. 

To the European mind this outbreak seemed a continua- 
tion of the revolution that had begun in the United States and 
had swept through Europe under the leadership of the French. 

^ D. C. Gilman, James Monroe, revised ed., Boston, etc., [1900]. The 
appendix contains a bibliography of the Monroe Doctrine to 1897. 

203 



204 AMERICAN DIPLOMACY 

Brazil, indeed, established an empire; but Spain's former 
possessions broke up into federal republics based on the 
European model of the United States. In 1820 the move- 

revolutions ment seemed to rebound to Europe, and insur- 

rections and revolts broke out in Spain herself, in Naples, 
in Sardinia, and in Greece. 

This time, however, revolution found monarchy organized 
to resist it. September 26, 1815, there had been signed at 
The Holy Al- Paris, at the earnest solicitation of Czar Alex- 
^^^^^ ander, the so-called Holy Alliance, by which 

Russia, Austria, and Prussia united to defend religion and 
morality, and, what they believed to be the only sure founda- 
tion for them, government by divine right. While the Holy 
Alliance of itself did little, it inspired with its principles the 
quadruple alliance, of which France was a member and with 
which England sometimes cooperated, as in the joint demon- 
stration against the Barbary pirates. In 1821 the meeting 
of the allies at Troppau authorized Austria to quench the 
revolts in Italy, and it was done. In 1822 the meeting at 
Verona commissioned France to restore the Spanish mon- 
archy, and that task was accomplished in 1823. 

The Congress of Verona resolved "that the system of 
representative government is equally incompatible with the 
European in- monarchical principles as the maxim of the sov- 
tervention ereignty of the people is with the divine right "; 

and the members engaged, "mutually and in the most 
solemn manner, to use all their efforts to put an end to the 
system of representative governments in whatsoever country 
it may exist in Europe, and to prevent its being introduced in 
those countries where it is not yet known." It is to be 
observed that the qualifying clause "in Europe" applies to 
the suppression of representative government where it then 
existed. It does not apply to the countries into which its 
future introduction should not be allowed. This precise 
reading of a phrase which was probably carefully framed 
leaves the United States unthreatened, but it seems to 



THE MONROE DOCTRINE 205 

imply a purpose to interfere in Spanish America. Nor was 
there any reason why European statesmen should recognize 
the Atlantic as a dividing line. Ideas crossed it all too 
readily for their taste, and they had always looked upon the 
whole world of European culture as one. It was the rumor, 
also, that France expected reward for her services to Spain in 
the shape of a Mexican kingdom for one of her princes, or in 
the cession of Cuba.^ Besides, Russia was certainly advanc- 
ing along the northwest coast, and might find cause and 
power to demand California from a grateful Spain. 

Great Britain, although she had opposed Revolution as 
exemplified in France, was as little in sympathy with Divine 
Right. She was alarmed at the disturbance Great Britain 
in that delicate adjustment, the balance of ^^ ^p^° 
power in Europe, which the alliance of all the great powers 
brought about. Her special interests, too, differed from those 
of continental Europe. If the Spanish-American revolutions 
of 1810 had not saved her from bankruptcy, as Napoleon 
believed, they had at any rate opened a rich and long-sought 
opportunity for wealth. If the dreams of Hawkins, of the 
speculators in the South Sea Bubble, of the colonists to 
Darien, were perhaps not fully realized, they at least became 
substantial. Ferdinand VII, after his restoration, though 
profuse in his rewards to his protector Wellington, was less 
obviously grateful to the nation that had sent Wellington 
to help him. He restored the old colonial system.^ 

No longer bound by any ties of consideration for Spain, 
Great Britain was unwilling to let Spanish-American trade 
slip through her fingers. She had no territorial ambitions; in 
a free competition she would gain the trade which was her 
principal object. Consequently she looked with pleasure on 

1 Marquis de Chateaubriand, Oeuvres completes (12 vols., Paris, 1865-73), 
X. 359, etc. 

^ J. R. Seeley, The Expansion of England, Boston, 1883, and later editions; 
Montagu Burrows, History of the Foreign Policy of Great Britain, New 
York, 1895; Viscount Castlereagh, Memoirs and Correspondence, etc. (12 
vols., London, 1850-53), vii. 257-456, etc. 



206 AMERICAN DIPLOMACY 

the progress of the revolution, one of the impulses of which 

was the desire to do business with her. England's interests 

, „ ., . and her moral convictions generally coincide, 
Great Britain i 

and Spanish and she has never spared her blood to advance 

them both. English volunteers, therefore, 
flocked to the banners of the revolutionary leaders. Admiral 
Cockrane commanded the fleet, practically a British one, 
which turned the tide on the Pacific coast, and a British 
legion was one of Bolivar's strongest weapons.^ In 1819 the 
government passed a neutrality act, ordering its subjects to 
stand aloof, it did not recognize the independence of the new 
states; but its sympathy was well known, and when Canning 
became foreign minister, in 1822, he made the question his 
leading interest. England would object to any action which 
might close the ports of Spanish America to her, she would 
object to the acquisition of Cuba by France, and to the exten- 
sion of Russian territory. How she would object was not 
known. 

For the United States the situation was a difficult one. 
Our republican sympathies were aroused by the vision of a 
g . . people shaking off the yoke of a European 
the United country. Our pride was touched by an appar- 
ent effort to imitate our methods. In 1811 both 
houses of Congress resolved "that they beheld with friendly 
interest the establishment of independent sovereignties by the 
Spanish provinces of America." In 1810 Joel Poinsett was 
sent to Buenos Ayres "to ascertain the real condition of the 
South American peoples, as well as their prospects of suc- 
cess." His report of 1818 was unfavorable; but we continued 
to maintain an agent at that city, and Clay made his sym- 
pathy for the movement his chief political instrument in 
attacking the administration. In 1818 trade with Spanish 
America was authorized.^ Adventurers threw themselves 

* Winsor, America, vol. v\i\. 

^ F. L. Paxson, The Independence of the South American Republics, Phila- 
delphia, 1903; C. J. Stille, The Life and Services of Joel R. Poinsett, Phila- 
delphia, 1888. 



THE MONROE DOCTRINE 207 

into the cause of the revolutionists. In fact our concern in 
the cause did not stop with the Atlantic. Dr. Samuel Howe 
joined the forces of the Greeks; and in 1824 Webster delivered 
an oration in their behalf. Sympathy with revolution was not 
unassociated with dread of the forces of oppression. Par- 
ticularly was Roman Catholicism coming, in the popular 
mind, to be connected with Divine Right, and the European 
support of the American missions of that church was for 
many years regarded as an insidious attack on our institu- 
tions. 

To this popular interest in Spanish-American affairs the 
administration obviously could not give free rein without 
sacrificing the Spanish treaty, which was at Sympathy ver- 
this time being negotiated. Yet we could not ^"^ neutraHty 
ignore a situation which filled the Caribbean with Spanish 
and Spanish-American warships and privateers, and with 
pirates who were taking advantage of the new flags. These 
vessels did not respect the rule of free ships, free goods, and 
some of them did not respect any rule at all. As a maritime 
nation we were bound to recognize the divergence from the 
normal, but to induce Spain to make her cessions we must 
at the same time preserve the fairest appearance of neu- 
trality. We^were, in fact, confronted by a new aspect of 
neutrality which has troubled us often enough since, namely, 
our duty in a neighboring contest of forces less strong than 
our own. In 1815 the President issued a neutrality proclama- 
tion, and in 1817 Congress passed a new neutrality act, 
which, amended in 1818, set a new and higher standard of , 
national obligations. 

Fearful of having his hand forced by Congress under the 
leadership of Clay, Adams, in December, 1817» wrote to his 
friend Alexander Everett furnishing him with Neutrality ver- 
the gist of a scathing indictment of the new re- ^"^ recognition 
publics which he hoped he would put in form for the news- 
papers.^ He was not, as he explained later to the cabinet, 

1 Letters to Everett, 1811-1837, Amer. Hist. Review, 1905, xi. 88-116. 



208 AMERICAN DIPLOMACY 

willing to see the new governments fall, but they were not 
going to fall, and our record must be clear; the European 
powers were attempting peaceful mediation, which we must 
allow. In March, 1818, however, he told the cabinet that, 
since the Holy Alliance had had a free opportunity to 
attempt a peaceful adjustment and had failed, as he had be- 
lieved it would, we must not commit ourselves against recog- 
nition of the new republics, for we should ultimately recog- 
nize them. At the same time, feeling confident that England 
sympathized with our position, he assured her minister that 
we would cooperate with her in preserving the independence 
of the states, though not in alliance. He had divined the 
separation of Great Britain from the allies, and he sought 
to widen the breach. From that date our recognition of the 
new republics hung on the Florida treaty, and it was not 
till March 8, 1822 after the final ratifications had been ex- 
changed, that the President recommended it to Congress. 
Recognition did not, of course, mean a departure from neu- 
trality, which we still professed. It was in this situation, 
with our Florida chestnuts out of the fire, without having 
by our acts given the allies any handle for interference, and 
with a comfortable assurance as to the position of England, 
that we awaited whatever action might be taken when the 
pacification of Europe was complete. 

The enthusiasm of many of our statesmen for the revolu- 
tionary movement had been dampened by other considera- 
Our reversion- tions than those of our relations with Spain, 
^y interests Ever since our beginnings as a nation certain 
portions of Spanish America had been earmarked as ulti- 
mately ours: the Floridas, Texas, and certainly Cuba — it 
was unnecessary to define exactly. As early as 1790 we con- 
sidered the question of asserting our reversionary interest 
in the Floridas, and from 1808 we were prepared to assert 
it in Cuba. Afraid that that island might fall either to 
France or to England, Jefferson wrote to Gallatin, May 17, 
1808: "I shall sincerely lament Cuba's falling into any hands 



THE MONROE DOCTRINE 209 

but those of its present owners. Spanish America is at 
present in the best hands for us, and 'Chi sta bene, non si 
muove should be our motto.'" In April, 1809, he wrote to 
Madison that Napoleon might let us have Cuba "to prevent 
our aid to Mexico and the other provinces. That would be a 
price," he added, "and I would immediately erect a column 
on the southernmost limit of Cuba, and inscribe on it a ne 
plus ultra as to us in that direction. . , . Cuba can be 
defended by us without a na\'y, and this develops the prin- 
ciple which ought to limit our views." We were clear that 
we could not with equanimity see Cuba taken by either 
France or England; but how inconvenient also would it be 
should that island, or indeed Texas and possibly California, 
fall from the hands of Spain, out of which we could so honor- 
ably rescue them, only to assume an independence which 
it would be sacrilege for us to violate! These views were 
embodied by Adams in a dispatch to Nelson, our minister 
to Spain, April 28, 1823. They have constituted the rift 
in the lute of our Spanish-American relations which has 
until to-day prevented those republics from dancing to 
our piping. 

To the situation, already complex, another element was 
added by Russia's independent action. Her traders, coming 
south from Alaska, had in 1816 established a The Russian 
fort in what is now California. In 1821 the advance 
czar issued a ukase, or proclamation, giving to a Russian 
company exclusive right to territory as far south as the 
fifty-first parallel, and excluding foreigners from the sea 
for a distance of one hundred Italian miles from the coast. 
The Russian minister. Baron de Tuhl, also informed Adams 
that his sovereign would not recognize the independence 
of Spanish America, and on November 16, 1823, communi- 
cated to him a manifesto of the czar, as mouthpiece of the 
Holy Alliance, setting forth the advantages of Divine Right 
and the inadequacy of republics. The ukase was as dis- 
tasteful to Great Britain as to us, and the ministers of the 



210 AMERICAN DIPLOMACY 

two countries were ordered to cooperate in remonstrance. 
The manifesto was our own affair.^ 

It was at this juncture that Adams received from Rush, 
our minister at London, a proposal from Canning. The 
Canning's latter conceived that it was hopeless for Spain 

°^^^ . to try to recover her colonies, but he was not 

opposed to an amicable arrangement between them and the 
mother country; the question of the recognition of their 
independence, he said, was one of time and circumstance. 
Great Britain, he declared, did not aim at the possession of 
any portion of Spain's territory herself, but she could not with 
indifference see the transfer of any portion of it to another 
power. He informed Rush that he had received unofficial 
notice that a proposal would be made "for a Congress [of 
the allied nations], or some less formal concert and consulta- 
tion, especially upon the affairs of Spanish America." If 
the United States acceded to his views, a declaration to 
that effect, concurrently with England, would, he thought, 
be "the most effectual and the least offensive" mode of 
making known their joint disapprobation of the suggested 
interference of Europe in the affairs of America. 

This proposal reached Washington October 9, 1823, and 
at once precipitated one of the most critical cabinet discus- 
Cabinet dis- sions in our history. There can now remain 
cussion jjQ doubt that the policy adopted was that 

continually and aggressively urged by Adams. Monroe was 
at first in favor of accepting the advance. Adams argued 
that England and the United States did not stand on an 
equal basis, because we had recognized the Spanish-American 
republics and she had not, because we did want portions of 
Spanish America, and, most significantly, because we were the 
most interested party. His attempt to put the question " to a 
test of right and wrong" reads curiously in view of his 
dispatch to Nelson regarding Cuba; and his objection to co- 

1 Georg Heinz, Die Beziehungen zmschen Russland, England und Nord- 
amerika im Jahre 1823, Berlin, 1911. 



THE MONROE DOCTRINE 211 

operation on the ground that it was contrary to our policy of 
abstaining from entangUng alliances seems hardly consistent 
with the union of American and British interests at St. Peters- 
burg. Yet this latter point really constituted the chief ground 
of opposition to Canning's proposal; it restruck the note of 
isolation sounded by John Adams, Washington, and Jeffer- 
son. The negotiation with Russia might be defended on the 1 
basis that the territory threatened by Russia was legally 
in the joint occupation of the two countries; but to cooperate 
in a matter of this importance and publicity, where not spe- 
cial interest but general American policy was at stake, was 
to throw isolation overboard, to admit that Great Britain 
was a partner in American affairs. Moreover, cooperation 
was not essential. Since Great Britain was moved by per- 
manent interests, these would not change because we refused 
to join her. The British fleet would still stand between 
Spanish America and united Europe.^ 

The exclusion of cooperation with Great Britain carried 
with it the use of Canning's idea of a self-denying ordinance 
as the basis of objection to the proposed inter- „ . , , 
lerence. It was necessary to find a different Monroe Doc- 
one, and that employed was none other than 
an extension of the very policy of isolation because of which 
we refused to cooperate with Great Britain. This policy 
was extended beyond the primary idea that we as a nation 
should not be involved in European wars; it was extended 
beyond Madison's instruction to Monroe that we ought to 
begin to broach the idea that the whole Gulf Stream is our 
waters; it was extended to include the whole of both the 
American continents. As a basis for this extension, and at 
the same time as an answer to the czar's defence of Divine 
Right, there was inserted in the President's message a declara- 
tion that the political systems of Europe and America were 
different and incompatible. " Our policy in regard to Europe, 

^ W. C. Ford, "John Quincy Adams and the Monroe Doctrine," Amer. 
Hist. Review, 1902, vii. 676-696, viil. 28-52. 



212 AMERICAN DIPLOMACY 

which was adopted at an early stage of the wars which have 
so long agitated that quarter of the globe, nevertheless re- 
mains the same, which is, not to interfere in the internal 
concerns of any of its powers; to consider the government de 
facto as the legitimate government for us. . . . But in regard 
to those [the American] continents circumstances are emin- 
ently and conspicuously different. It is impossible that the 
allied powers should extend their political system to any 
portion of either continent without endangering our peace 
and happiness; nor can anyone believe that our southern 
brethren, if left to themselves would adopt it. . . ." This 
policy forced Monroe to leave out of his message a recom- 
mendation for the recognition of revolutionary Greece, as 
that would have been an interference in European affairs; 
yet the stand taken was so obviously but a stretching of our 
oldest policy, of the movement begun by our own Revolution, 
that it was heartily approved. 

So far the policy outlined dealt with the right of the settled 
portions of the American continents to choose their own 
End of coloniz- governments; it remained to deal with the 
ing era Russian advance on the unsettled northwest 

coast. On this point Monroe announced that "the occasion 
has been judged proper for asserting, as a principle in which 
the rights and interests of the United States are involved, 
that the American continents, by the free and independent 
condition which they have assumed and maintain, are hence- 
forth not to be considered as subjects for future coloniza- 
tion by any European powers." The era of claim-making 
was past; in the future boundaries were to be found, not 
made. 

The confidence with which these bold declarations were 
made in Monroe's message of December 2, 1823, rested more 
European in- on the eflSciency of the British navy than on 
tervention ^^^ ^^^ strength. At the same time, it is 

evident that in theory they bore as heavily on England as on 
the powers of the Quadruple Alliance, in actual fact even 



THE MONROE DOCTRINE 213 

more heavily, for Great Britain was more interested in Amer- 
ica than they were, was in fact as great an American power 
as we ourselves. Thus to use for one's own purposes the 
resources of a rival power, while yielding nothing to her 
rivalry, is daring; but, if justified, it is the highest manifesta- 
tion of the diplomatic art. In this case Adams proved to be 
as safe as he believed himself to be. Even before Monroe's 
announcement, on October 9, France informed England that 
she would not endeavor to obtain territory in America and 
did not consider that Spain had any opportunity to regain 
hers.^ 

While the message did not, therefore, contribute to the 
defeat of united Europe, it did enable us to gain a succes 
d'estime in the Russian negotiation. The czar check to Rus- 
was not sufficiently interested in the north- sia's expansion 
west coast to inconvenience himself over it. He refused 
the bribe of California which Mexico offered for a recogni- 
tion of her independence. Willing to yield to the combined 
protest of England and the United States, he was actually 
more favorable to the latter in spite of her form of govern- 
ment, because of the traditional Russian desire to build up 
anywhere a rival to England's merchant marine. When, 
therefore. Canning withdrew from cooperation with us be- 
cause "the principle laid down with respect to colonization 
in the speech of the President of the United States (to which 
Great Britain does not assent) must be so particularly dis- 
pleasing to Russia," the czar took the opportunity to con- 
clude a treaty with us before he did with Great Britain. 
This treaty, signed in 1824, was entirely satisfactory to us. 
By fixing the parallel of 54° 40' as the southern limit of Rus- 

1 A. C. Coolidge, The United States as a World Power (New York, 1908), 
95-120; J. A. Kassou, Evolution of the Constitution . . . and History of the 
Monroe Doctrine, Boston, etc., 1904; T. B. Edington, The Monroe Doctrine, 
Boston, 1904; W. S. Robertson, The Beginnings of Spanish-American Diplo- 
macy, in Turner Essays (New York, 1910), 231-267; J. H. Kraus, Monroe- 
docktrin, in ihren Beziehungen zur amerikanischen Diplomatic und zum Volker- 
recht. 



214 AMERICAN DIPLOMACY 

sian America, it checked her expansion and thus added a 
sixth link to our claim to Oregon.^ 

Canning's withdrawal from cooperation in the Russian 
negotiation was the result of a thorough discontent with 
Canning's the whole doctrine of Monroe's message, which 

opposition asserted the primacy of the United States in 

American affairs. It was not for this that he was bringing 
"a new world into existence"; and, rightly claiming that 
Monroe's message was but the prelude to an active anti- 
English, or at least Pan-American, policy on our part, he 
at once entered into a contest with Adams for the leadership 
of Spanish America. In 1823 his instructions to his com- 
missioners to the various states direct their attention to 
danger from France, those of 1824 to danger from the United 
States. On January 16, 1824, his Mexican commission re- 
ported, "Hence the Mexicans are looking anxiously around 
them in quest of an alliance with one of the great maritime 
powers of Europe, and if they should be disappointed in their 
hopes, they will ultimately be forced to throw themselves into 
the arms of the United States." ^ 

The fears of Canning and the hopes of Adams were equally 
aroused when, in 1825, after Adams had been elected to the 
Adams's am- presidency and Clay had become his secretary 
bitions ^^ state, the Spanish American powers extended 

to us an invitation to meet them in the congress to be held 
at Panama. Adams at once accepted the invitation, and 
announced to our Congress that he would commission minis- 
ters to attend. Canning wrote: "The other and perhaps 
still more powerful motive of my apprehension is the ambi- 
tion and ascendency of the United States of America. It is 
obviously the policy of that government to connect itself 
with all the powers of America in a general Transatlantic 
League, of which it would have the sole direction. I need 

' "Correspondence of the Russian Ministers in Washington, 1818-1825," 
Amer. Hist. Review, 1913, xviii. 309-345, 537-562. 
^Temperley, Canning, chs. viii.-x. 



THE MONROE DOCTRINE 215 

only say how inconvenient such an ascendency may be in 
time of peace, and how formidable in case of war." Again 
he wrote that Great Britain would not object to a Spanish- 
American league; "but any project of putting the United 
States of North America at the head of an American Con- 
federacy, as against Europe, would be highly displeasing to 
your government . . . and it would too probably at no very 
distant period endanger the peace both of America and of 
Europe." ^ 

At this point Canning had the best cards, and he played 
them wuth a shade more skill than Adams did his. The latter 
had made a point by granting the first recog- Adams versus 
nition to Spanish America; Canning, however, Canning 
rightly judged his own later recognition the more potent. 
December 17, 1824, he wrote of this act, " The deed is done, 
the nail is driven, Spanish America is free, and if we do not 
mismanage our affairs badly, she is English." Of the two 
countries, England was able to exert the greater influence 
with Spain to secure her recognition of the independence of 
her former colonies, and she also had more capital for the 
loans needed by both government and people. Canning 
referred to such investments in Buenos Ayres as not "mere 
commercial speculations." Mr. Hervey, the commissioner 
in Mexico, wrote home, March 30, 1824, "Without the tem- 
porary aid aJ0Forded by Mr. Staples, the government would 
have labored under the greatest embarrassment, and must 
indeed have stopped payment altogether." For an attempt 
to guarantee this loan Mr. Hervey was recalled, but he him- 
self believed that his recall was due to "the peculiar circum- 

1 British Public Record Office, Foreign Office Records, Mss., Mexico, 
iii., iv., vi.; also Colombia and Buenos Ayres. In regard to mediation, in 1826 
and 1827, between Buenos Ayres and Brazil regarding Montevideo, Can- 
ning instructs his minister: "As to taking part with either side in the con- 
test your Lordship cannot too peremptorily repress any expectation of that 
nature. . . . There is much of the Spanish character in the inhabitants of 
the colonial establishments of Spain; and there is nothing in the Spanish 
character more striking than its impatience of foreign advice, and its sus- 
picion of gratuitous service." 



216 AMERICAN DIPLOMACY 

stances which have given publicity to correspondence marked 
with the Stamp of Secrecy." How great was the financial 
opportunity is indicated by the plan of the Mexican Con- 
gress to open bids for a canal across the isthmus of Tehuan- 
tepec. 

Still more important than the need of money, which Eng- 
land alone could supply, was the fact that Great Britain and 

. Spanish America were commercially supple- 

Britain's in- mentary to each other, the one a manufactur- 
ing country, the other a producer of raw ma- 
terials. While the United States could use some South 
American tropical products, there was nothing which she 
could supply in return more cheaply than could Great Britain. 
Adams's obstinacy, too, was somewhat apparent in his com- 
mercial negotiations with the new powers; he was extremely 
loath to admit any deviation from our usual policies. The 
Spanish-American republics wished to retain the right to 
discriminate in their commercial relations between Spain 
and other countries, in hope of thus buying recognition of 
their independence. Adams would make no treaties except 
on the basis of most favored nation, while Canning was, 
within limits, complaisant. The latter, however, had his 
troubles also, because of his insistence on the suppression 
of the slave trade. As a result, the year 1829 found us enjoy- 
ing commercial treaties only with Central America, Brazil, 
and Colombia, while England had them with Buenos Ayres, 
Colombia, Brazil, and Mexico. 

Meanwhile Congress had been debating the proposition 
to send ministers to Panama. The administration finally 
Difficulties in won, and the delegates were sent; but the delay 
Se 'uSted °^ caused them to be too late, and the oppor- 
States tunity did not come again. The instructions 

growing out of the debate, however, make it doubtful if 
their presence would have been profitable, for the United 
States was not prepared to assume the lead in the direction 
toward which the ambitions of the new republics tended. 



THE MONROE DOCTRINE 217 

Their great purpose was to free Cuba and Porto Rico from 
Spain; but as this plan was directly opposed to our wishes, 
our ministers were instructed not to discuss it. Canning, 
quick to see his advantage, wrote, March 18, 1826, that, 
while Great Britain also preferred the existing state of things, 
"So far from denying the right of the new states of America 
to make a hostile attack upon Cuba . . . we have uniformly 
refused to join the United States in remonstrating with 
Mexico against the supposed intention. . . . We should in- 
deed regret it, but we arrogate to ourselves no right to control 
the operations of one belligerent against another. The gov- 
ernment of the United States, however, professes itself of a 
different opinion, ..." He adds: "Neither England nor 
France, could see with indifference the United States in oc- 
cupation of Cuba." On October 15, 1826, he wrote: "The 
general influence of the United States is not, in my opinion, 
to be feared. It certainly exists in Colombia, but it has been 
very much weakened even there by their protests against the 
attack on Cuba." 

It was still farther weakened among the racially mixed 
population of Spanish America, which was marching under 
the banner of universal emancipation, by the influence of 
widespread publication which the debate over slavery 
the Panama congress gave to our racial prejudices, nota- 
bly the opposition of a strong element among us to negro 
emancipation, particularly in Cuba, and our unwilling- 
ness to sit in the congress with delegates from the negro 
states of Hayti and the Dominican Republic. 

The plan for a United States hegemony of the American 
continent, therefore, fell before the greater resources of 
England, and because of our divided policies, idealization of 

England continued until the present genera- the Monroe 

. , , . , Doctiine 

tion to enjoy commercial predommance and a 

certain political leadership. Those policies, however, to 

which Monroe's message was confined — the separation of 

the American and European spheres of influence, and the 



218 AMERICAN DIPLOMACY 

closing of the era of colonization — were grounded on facts, 
permanent interests, and the waxing strength of the United 
States. Although not incorporated in law, either national 
or international, they have stood. Europe has actually re- 
spected the territorial integrity and political independence 
of the Americas, and our people have until to-day em- 
braced as one of their most cherished ideals the statement of 
Monroe's policy, founded as it was on their fundamental 
desire to pursue untrammelled the course of their own de- 
velopment and to hold Europe at ocean's length. Possibly 
its association with the venerable and non-contentious figure 
of Monroe gave it quicker and more general hold on the 
public mind than if it had taken its name from its real author, 
the belligerent Adams. From time to time the mantle of 
the Monroe Doctrine has been spread over additions and in- 
terpretations, till the name now stands for much that was 
not imagined at its announcement. It is possible that, by 
tending to cr3'stallize our ideas, it has in the long run hamp- 
ered our adjustment to conditions; for national interests are 
only relatively permanent, and their relationship with one 
another changes constantly. There can be no doubt, how- 
ever, of the advantage that it was to us, in the period of 
untutored democracy upon which we were just entering, 
to have out a sheet anchor of fixed and respected 
policy. 

In the fifteen years between 1815 and 1830 our territory 
had been further consolidated by the acquisition of Florida, 

great reaches of our boundarv had been de- 
Accomphsh- ^ , *^ i- i 

ments, 1815 to fined, and our claims to a Pacific coast line had 

1829 

been vastly strengthened. We had opened the 
world so far as it interested us to our exports and, with 
the exception of the British West Indies, to our shipping. 
We had passed the crisis of the Spanish-American revolution 
in such a way that the ])robability of European interference 
in our affairs was diminished rather than increased, as it had 
at one time seemed likely to be. Russia was eliminated 



THE MONROE DOCTRINE 219 

as a potential American power. Threads had been tied to- 
gether, disagreements healed or bandaged, and our national 
experience had been crystallized into a policy to guide future 
manifestations of the national will. 



CHAPTER XVIII 

RECIPROCITY, CLAIMS, BOUNDARIES, AND THE 
SLAVE TRADE 

By 1815 diplomacy had ceased to shape politics; after 1830 
politics began to shape diplomacy. With Jackson, "shirt- 
Change of per- sleeve" diplomacy began, but it did not reach 
sonnei j|.g zenith till after the Civil War. The most 

important change in personnel took place in the state de- 
partment itself: in 1833 only two old officials remained; it 
was the most nearly complete break ever made in the con- 
tinuity of that staff. This weakening of the central adminis- 
tration was accompanied by a remanning of the diplomatic 
corps that was quite as sweeping. Appointments were now 
eagerly sought, and there were few more satisfactory methods 
of paying political debts. Many choices were not without 
merit, but for the most part they reflected the general tend- 
ency of politics to rely on mediocrity. Still more apparent 
was the lack of familiarity with European conditions, which 
was the product of our realized isolation. Less than the 
men of 1775, with their colonial interest in "home" affairs, 
many of them, like the Pinckneys, with an English 
education, did the new ministers understand world poli- 
tics. 

Of the secretaries of state for the next fifteen years. Van 
Buren was tactful and suave, but in diplomacy colorless. 
Van Buren, Louis McLane was without distinction. Ed- 
LDgston^For-^' ward Livingston was every inch a diplomat, but 
sytii his service was cut all too short by his death. ^ 

Forsyth, who served Jackson and Van Buren for seven years, 
was skilful and had had experience, but he left no impress. 
1 C. H. Hunt, Life of Edward Livingston, New York, 1864. 
220 



RECIPROCITY, CLAIMS, BOUNDARIES, ETC. 221 

Legare and Upshur together were m office only about a year. 
Webster and Calhoun are the only really great names, and 
they, properly, are remembered for other things. They 
serve in fact to illustrate two of the more general weak- 
nesses of the whole service. Webster handled cases; the 
adaptation of a general policy to the whole 
field of diplomacy he did not attempt. He was 
primarily a lawyer, only incidentally a diplomat. Hardly any 
one was primarily a diplomat, or primarily Literary ap- 
interested in diplomacy. When a President pomtments 
wished to gain applause, he appointed an author, like James 
Fenimore Cooper or Washington Irving, who was expected 
to repay the nation by writing a book. Of all 
the statesmen of the time, Calhoun was prob- 
ably the best endowed for diplomatic work, but he sacrificed 
diplomacy to politics. The only really great American who 
was greatly interested in diplomacy was Henry 
Wheaton, who spent this period in various 
German posts. Performing perfectly the difficult, but not 
very important, tasks allotted him, he devoted his leisure to 
the cognate study of international law.^ He was recalled in 
1845, and the fruit of his preparation was never gathered by 
the nation. 

The rank and file of the service possessed characteristics 
similar to those of the chiefs, except that some of Jackson's 
appointments, as that of John Randolph to j^. . 
Russia and of Butler to Mexico, were con- and consular 
spicuously bad, and Tyler's on the whole con- 
spicuously good. During this period both the diplomatic 
and the consular service grew rapidly in numbers. An at- 
tempt to improve the consular system was made in 1833; 
but it failed, and- the staff continued to decline in quality. 

In spite of these defects, it remains true that American 

^ See his History of the Laiv of Nations, New York, 1845; and his Elements 
of International Law, Philadelphia, 1836, which has been many times edited 
and brought up to date. 



222 AMERICAN DIPLOMACY 

diplomacy, although its wheels creaked and rumbled, ac- 
complished its main ends. This attainment was, however, 
^. ,. ._ . due more to situation than to merit. We had 

Simpucity of i • i /-. t. • • 

the American only one strong general rival, Great Britain, 
^^* ^'^ and with her, after years of controversy, 

Webster finally dealt. The other countries with whom we 
had intimate relationships were too weak to make our errors 
painful to us. American commerce was simpler than it 
had been, consisting more and more of the exchange of our 
non-competitive agricultural products for manufactures 
which other nations were anxious to sell us. Such direct 
commerce needs much less governmental protection than the 
carrying trade, which had previously been of so much greater 
relative importance, or than the disposal of competitive 
goods such as we now produce. 

Jackson, like Jefferson, found the diplomatic board for 
the moment almost swept clean of compUcations. Yet, as 
British West Jefferson had been able to reap some glory 
^^^^^ from a new handling of the Barbary question, 

so Jackson scored an early triumph by restoring trade with 
the British West Indies. Van Buren, as senator, had opposed 
Adams on that point, claiming that he was too stiff in main- 
taining non-essentials, a fault which was certainly Adams's 
characteristic weakness. He promptly instructed McLane, 
our new minister to Great Britain, to assure the British 
government that with the change of administration in the 
United States had come a change of policy, and to offer to 
renew trade on the basis of the British acts of 1825. Great 
Britain was complaisant, and by proclamation this long- 
vexed question was finally settled on terms that gave the 
United States complete freedom of direct trade, but not of 
trade between the islands and other countries. Van Buren 
failed to win the plaudits for which he had hoped, owing to 
his unusual and improper reference to domestic politics in a 
dispatch intended to be read to a foreign minister.^ 

1 E. M. Shepard, Martin Van Buren (Boston, etc., 1900), chs. vi.-vii. 



RECIPROCITY, CLAIMS, BOUNDARIES, ETC. 223 

Partly as a result of the same greater flexibility, the for- 
mation of commercial treaties with Spanish America now pro- 
ceeded more rapidly; in 1831 one was made The Mediter- 
with Mexico, in 1832 one with Chili, compacts ^anean 
with Peru, Bolivia, and Venezuela followed in 1836, and one 
with Ecuador in 1839. Probably the policy of the adminis- 
tration had less to do with the framing of our first treaties 
with Mediterranean powers than had the general ameliora- 
tion of commercial conditions, especially the final quelling of 
the Barbary pirates after the capture of Algiers by the 
French in 1830. At all events, treaties were made with the 
Ottoman empire in 1830, with Greece in 1837, Sardinia in 
1838, and the Two Sicilies, or Naples, in 1845. In 1840 a 

first treaty was made with Portugal. In 1833 a 

• • T^ , 1 ^ ^ 1 , The East 

rovmg commission to Edmund Roberts resulted 

in our first Asiatic treaties, — one with Muscat and one with 
Siam. In 1843 we officially expressed an interest in Hawaii, 
and in 1844 our first treaty with China was concluded. This 
latter was relatively satisfactory from a commercial point of 
view, for it opened the five ports of Kwang-Chow, Amoy, 
Fuchow, Ningpo, and Shanghai to commerce and residence 
and elaborately regulated trade. It did not open the way 
to missionary enterprise. 

Throughout the period the policy of reciprocity was 
actively pursued. In so far as the employment of vessels 
was concerned it was embodied in most of the . 

treaties already mentioned, and it was in some 
cases extended to reciprocity of customs dues. By a con- 
vention of 1831: "The wines of France, from and after the 
exchange of the ratifications of the present convention, shall 
be admitted to consumption in the States of the Union at 
duties which shall not exceed the following rates," and "the 
proportion existing between the duties on French wines thus 
reduced, and the general rates of the tariff which went into 
operation the first of January, 1829, shall be maintained, in 
case the Government of the United States should think proper 



224 AMERICAN DIPLOMACY 

to diminish those general rates." France in return agreed to 
establish the same duties on long staple cotton as on the short 
staple, if carried in French or American vessels, and in "con- 
sideration of this stipulation, which shall be binding on the 
United States for ten years, the French government abandons 
the reclamations which it had formed in relation to the 
eighth article of the treaty of cession of Louisiana." 

This last clause was in settlement of a dispute regarding 
the significance of the "most favored nation" provision, 
" Most fa- which affected our whole reciprocity campaign, 
vored nation " Nearly all our treaties were on this basis. If 
thereby every nation on such terms with us were to enjoy 
every favor granted to any nation, our bargaining power 
would be much reduced. John Quincy Adams had argued 
with France that it applied only to favors freely granted, not 
to special concessions given in exchange for other special 
favors. This interpretation was incorporated into our 
treaty with Mexico in 1832, which qualified the "most 
favored nation" clause by providing that the nations mu- 
tually, "shall enjoy the same [favors] freely, if the concession 
was freely made, or upon the same conditions, if the conces- 
sion was conditional." ^ 

The most important commercial negotiations were those 
conducted in Germany by Henry Wheaton. At the very 
German trea- end of the period he secured the abolition, by 
^®^ numbers of the sovereign German states, of the 

droit d'auhaine, or tax on estates of foreigners, and of the 
droit de detraction, or tax on emigration. Meantime he was 
working for commercial reciprocity on the basis of Adams's 
interpretation of the "most favored nation," Avhich he may 
be said to have incorporated into international law. In 1840 
he arranged a treaty with Hanover. Most of the other North 
German states were united in the Zollverein, or customs 
union, of which Prussia was the head. This group of states 

' Max Farrand, "The Commercial Privileges of the Treaty of 1803," 
Amer. Hist. Review. 1902, vii. 494-499. 



RECIPROCITY, CLAIMS, BOUNDARIES, ETC. 225 

consumed half of our tobacco crop and much of our rice. 
In 1838 Wheaton secured a reduction in the duty on rice. 
Our tariff of 1842, however, incited retaUation, and in 1844 he 
made a new arrangement on a reciprocal basis. By this 
agreement the United States was to impose only rates fixed 
in the treaty on certain products of the Zollverein, which in 
return was to reduce to a stipulated rate its duties on tobacco 
and lard, to forego its contemplated increase in the tax on 
rice, and to impose no duty at all on raw cotton. These 
provisions were to apply only to direct trade in German or 
American vessels. 

This treaty, commercially very favorable, was in 1844 
recommended by President Tyler to the Senate. Rufus 
Choate reported for its committee on foreign p • .j f 
affairs: "The Committee . . . are not pre- Zollverein 
pared to sanction so large an innovation 
upon ancient and uniform practice in respect of the depart- 
ment of government by which duties on imports shall be 
imposed. . . . The . . . committee believe that the general 
rule of our system is indisputably that the control of trade 
and the function of taxation belong, without abridgment or 
participation, to Congress." Calhoun, who was secretary of 
state, maintained on the other hand that such rate-making, 
whether by treaty or by international agreement, was a well- 
established practice: "The only question it is believed that 
was ever made was, whether an act of Congress was not 
necessary to sanction and carry the stipulations making the 
change into effect." Many considerations intervened, such 
as the unpopularity of Tyler and the Whig objections to 
any lowering of the customs rates; and the treaty was re- 
jected. Constitutionally the episode is of importance, be- 
cause the Senate, moved by outside considerations and for 
once forgetting its esprit de corps, put itself on record as 
supporting the contention of the House as to the limitations 
on the treaty-making power. ^ 

^ Senate Committee on Foreign Relations, Reports (Senate Doc, 56 Cong. 



226 AMERICAN DIPLOMACY 

A more exciting occupation than that of commercial 
negotiation was that of gunning for claims. These claims 
Claims trea- were of two classes. One kind had arisen, and 
^^^ continued to grow, from the disturbed condi- 

tion of Spanish America. Revolution had already become 
chronic and American citizens and their property were often 
in the way, often in fact were actively involved on one side 
or the other. Recognition of the resulting claims for dam- 
ages was obtained, and indemnity provided for, in treaties 
with Texas in 1838, Mexico in 1839, and Peru in 1841. 
The other class of claims was grounded on the maltreat- 
ment of American shipping during the Napoleonic wars. 
Such claims made the basis of a treaty with Denmark in 1830, 
with France in 1831, with the two Sicilies in 1832, and with 
Spain in 1834. With the addition of Portugal in 1851 the 
list was complete and the slate clean. Our claims against 
Great Britain had been wiped out by the war. 

The signing of the treaty with France did not, however, 
secure immediate payment of claims. On the contrary, its 
Claims treaty execution involved us in the only strictly 
with France diplomatic embroglio which aroused public 
interest between 1829 and 1840. Although rising at one time 
to a point at which even sane men expected war, the affair 
must in reality be considered as opera bouffe rather than 
drama. The king and peers of France constitutionally 
agreed that the nation would pay us, for the release from all 
our claims for seizure and destruction of property, five 
million dollars in six annual instalments; but the Chamber of 
Deputies, as our House of Representatives has so often 
done, refused to grant the money. Jackson mentioned the 
matter to Congress in 1833, and sent Livingston as minister 
to France, especially charged with obtaining payment. 
It is said that an intimation came from France that Jackson 

2 sess.. No. 231, pt. 8), viii. 36-37, June 14, 1844. Cf. S. M. Cullom, Fifty 
Years of Public Service (Chicago, 1911), 368-374; and E. S. Convin, National 
Supremacy, New York, 1913. 



RECIPROCITY, CLAIMS, BOUNDARIES, ETC. 227 

had better assume a stronger tone in his next message, of 
1834; at any rate, he did so. In seven pages he discussed the 
question with all his peculiar frankness. "Our institutions," 
said he, "are essentially pacific. Peace and friendly inter- 
course with all nations are as much the desire of our govern- 
ment as they are the interest of our people. But these 
objects are not to be permanently secured by surrendering 
the rights of our citizens or permitting solemn treaties for 
their indemnity, in cases of flagrant wrong, to be abrogated or 
set aside." ^ 

Interpreting this as a threat of war, French public opinion 
went up in the air. The government of Louis Philippe, 
conciliatory but dependent on public opinion, war clouds 
was forced to prepare for war. French fleets *^"° 
sailed for our coasts. The French Chamber, with a charac- 
teristic Gallic touch, voted the money, but would not pay it 
until an apology for Jackson's message was tendered. The 
French minister at Washington was recalled, and Livingston 
was given his passports. Our government maintained that a 
presidential message was a domestic document and hence 
neither justified official umbrage nor allowed official ex- 
planation. John Quincy Adams, now a member of the House 
of Representatives and chairman of its committee on foreign 
affairs, supported Jackson and reported in favor of retaliatory 
legislation, thereby losing an election to the Senate from 
Whig Massachusetts. In the Senate, the placating Clay 
delayed war preparation and caused conciliatory resolutions 
to be adopted. 

In his next annual message, December 7, 1835, Jackson 
explained that of the year before. "The conception," said 
he, "that it was my intention to menace or ReconcUiation 
insult the Government of France is as un- '^ France 
founded as the attempt to extort from the fears of that na- 
tion what her sense of justice may deny would be vain and 

^ Richardson, Messages of the Presidents, iii. 126-223; A. Danzat, Du role 
dea chambres en matiere de traitea internationaux. 



228 AMERICAN DIPLOMACY 

ridiculous." After some demur and an informal mediation 
by Great Britain, this explanation was accepted by France 
as satisfactory, relations were resumed, and payment was 
made. For this result the credit was claimed by the friends 
of Adams, of Clay, and of Jackson. It certainly belonged 
to whoever made the happy suggestion of explaining one 
domestic document by another. If presidential messages 
are not to be considered as international declarations, we 
neither insulted France nor apologized ; our honor was secure. 
If they are to be so considered, whatever insult the first 
contained was atoned for in the second, and French honor 
was satisfied. 

Meanwhile our always existing diflSculties with Great 
Britain were again approaching a head: they seem to re- 
Northeastem quire lancing about every quarter of a century, 
boundary rpj^^ most important of these concerned the 

boundary between the crossing of the St. Lawrence by the 
forty-fifth parallel, and a line drawn due north from the 
source of the St. Croix. The treaty of 1783 provided that 
this line run "to the Highlands; along the said Highlands 
which divide those rivers that empty themselves into the 
river St. Lawrence, from those which fall into the Atlantic 
Ocean." The question arose as to whether the St. John, 
emptying into the Bay of Fundy, flowed into the Atlantic 
ocean in the sense of the treaty. If it did, then the highlands 
referred to were those dividing its waters from the tributaries 
of the St. Lawrence, and quite near the latter; if not, the 
highlands would be those separating its valley from those of 
the rivers of Maine. About twelve thousand square miles 
were involved. The British contended for the second inter- 
pretation, holding that the intention had been to divide the 
river basins, and that this line would give them the whole 
of the St. John valley. The Americans claimed that the 
treaty had attempted to define a line already existing, — 
the southern boundary of Quebec as defined by the proclama- 
tion of 1763, in which the highlands were expressly men- 



RECIPROCITY, CLAIMS, BOUNDARIES, ETC. 229 




NORTHEASTERN 
BOUNDARY CONTROVERSffiS 

Scale of Miles 



10 6 



50 76 



230 AMERICAN DIPLOMACY 

tioned as running to the Bay of Chaleurs, and so were un- 
doubtedly the northern chain. 

The dispute was somewhat clouded by the hundred-and- 
fifty-year-old dispute between Massachusetts and French 
Border diffi- Acadia, which British New Brunswick now 
cuities claimed to represent, and by the presence of 

an old French fief, Madawaska, situated in the middle of 
the district and granted by the governor of Canada in 1683. 
This settlement had unfortunately been overlooked by the 
United States census of 1810. Obviously it had never de 
facto been a part of Massachusetts, as the United States 
claimed the whole region had been de jure. In the thirties 
the district was no longer overlooked. In 1831 a riot fol- 
lowed an attempt on the part of Maine to hold an election 
in Madawaska, and later the British planned a road through 
the region, connecting Halifax and Quebec. Lumberjacks 
of the two nations began to clash. In 1838 and 1839 occurred 
the "Restook war," in the valley of the Aroostook, a branch 
of the St. John. Congress authorized the President to call 
out the militia and to accept fifty thousand volunteers, and 
gave him ten million dollars credit. Maine voted eight hun- 
dred thousand dollars for forts. General Scott was sent 
to the frontier. In 1839 a modus vivendi was arranged by 
the governors of Maine and New Brunswick: "That the 
civil posse of Maine should retain possession of the valley of 
the Aroostook, the British denying their right; the British 
authorities retaining possession of the valley of the Upper 
St. John, Maine denying their right." The difficulty seemed 
the more serious because, although in 1827 Gallatin had suc- 
ceeded in arranging an arbitration, the result had proved 
unsatisfactory. The arbiter, the king of the Netherlands, 
had suggested a compromise and both parties had rejected 
his suggestion. Subsequent attempts at arbitration or com- 
promise had equally failed. 

Although the most important, this was not the only un- 
settled portion of the boundary line. The highlands once 



RECIPROCITY, CLAIMS, BOUNDARIES, ETC. 231 

agreed upon, the line was to descend to the " North- western 
most head of Connecticut river." What was the "North- 
western most head".'* There were several Minor bound- 
that might with no great stretch of the con- "^ disputes 
science be so described. About one hundred thousand acres 
were in dispute. More annoying, because a preventable 
error, was the fact, discovered by one of the commissions 




NOBTHWESTERNMOST HEAD OF CONNECTICUT RIVER 

under the treaty of Ghent, that the forty-fifth parallel had 

been incorrectly surveyed in 1774 and the report ever since 

had been accepted. The error was not great, but the tipping 

of the parallel northward as it went west had given us Rouses 

Point, which commanded the outlet of Lake Champlain, 

and upon which we had built a costly fortress. This was now 

found to be in territory properly British.^ 

^ J. F. Sprague, The North Eastern Boundary Controversy and the Aroostook 
War, Dover, Me., [1910]; W. F. Ganong, Evolution of the Boundaries of the 



232 



AMERICAN DIPLOMACY 



These disputes were rendered the more serious by the situ- 
ation in Canada and the attitude of the United States toward 
The Canadian it- The years from 1837 to IS^O mark a period 
insurrection ^^ unrest in that colony. There were French 
Canadian movements and RepubHcan movements to throw 
off British rule. Until the report of Lord Durham, in 1839, 
Great Britain was not decided in her attitude. In the United 




ROUSES POINT CONTROVERSY 

States there was sympathy for the revolution and hope of 
annexation. Once more confronted by the question of neu- 
trality, the government on the whole did its best, and did 
well. In 1838 Congress strengthened the neutrality law by 
giving the collectors of customs power to prevent the de- 
parture of military expeditions when there was "probable 
cause to believe" they intended to violate neutrality.^ 

Before the government could bring its force to bear on the 
frontier, however, the Niagara river had been the scene of 
actual hostilities. In 1837 forces equipped in 
New York gathered on Navy island, in Ameri- 
can waters, and were supplied from the United States by the 
little steamer Caroline. On December 26 a party of Canadian 
militia crossed the river, boarded the Caroline, and sent her 

Province of New Brunswick, Royal Soc. of Canada, Trans., 1901, vii. sec. ii. 
139-449. 

> William Kingsford, History of Canada (10 vols., London. 1888-98), x. 
430-457; Shcpard, Van Buren, 350-356; House Exec. Docs., 25 Cong., 2 
sess.. No. 74. 



The Caroline 



RECIPROCITY, CLAIMS, BOUNDARIES, ETC. 233 

drifting and afire over the falls. In the scrimmage one Amer- 
ican was killed. The excitement which this violation of our 
territory caused among the border population, already afire 
with sympathy for the Canadian movement, was intensified 
by a new episode which grew out of it. In 1840 Alexander 
McLeod, a Canadian, boasted in a New York 
saloon that he had been of the boarding party 
and had killed the American. He was at once arrested and 
put on trial for murder. The British government demanded 
that he be released on the ground that whatever he had done 
had been done under orders. The United States replied that 
he was being tried in a state court and that the national gov- 
ernment could not interfere. Webster, who became secretary 
of state in March, 1841, wrote to President Tyler in July, 
that "Hunters' Lodges" were organized along the border 
from Maine to Wisconsin, that they were said to number ten 
thousand members and to desire war with Great Britain, 
that they were likely to attempt violence against McLeod, 
and that, if a " mob should kill him, war would be inevitable 
in ten days." ^ 

The coming in of Webster at this juncture was fortunate, 
and it happily coincided with the new British ministry of 

Sir Robert Peel, favorably inclined to a settle- „, . 

. Webster 

ment with the United States. Webster was 

well known to the ministry, which sent Lord Ashburton over 

to treat with him. The latter was a member of the firm of 

Baring Brothers, his wife was an American, and he personally 

knew Webster, to whom he wrote truly, January 2, 1842, 

" The principal aim and object of that part of my life devoted 

to public objects during the thirty-five years that I have had 

a seat in one or the other House of Parliament, has been to 

impress on others the necessity of, and to promote myself, 

peace and harmony between our countries." Under such 

pleasing auspices the settlement was undertaken, but the 

mutual friendliness and good fellowship did not prevent either 

1 Daniel Webster, Letters (ed. C. H. Van Tyne, New York, 1902), 233. 



234 AMERICAN DIPLOMACY 

party from sturdily maintaining his case, or from withholding 
from the other evidence which he believed to be damaging to 
his own position.^ 

The McLeod affair was for Webster to arrange. Great 
Britain was right about it, but our national government 
Settlement of was without authority to interfere. Webster 
^d ^ Carol^e followed the trial with great interest, used his 
^^^^ influence with the state government, and was 

not uninfluential in obtaining the final discharge of McLeod, 
although he w^as dissatisfied with the form which it took — 
the acceptance of an alibi. He also saw to it that precisely 
such cases should not arise in the future, by securing an act 
of Congress providing that a subject of a foreign power on 
trial in a state court might be brought into a United States 
court on a writ of habeas corpus, and dismissed if the latter 
court judged proper.^ The Caroline affair was settled by an 
exchange of notes. Webster admitted that such a violation 
of our territory was permissible if necessary for self-defence, — 
we could not well take the opposite view considering our 
several invasions of Spanish Florida, — but he denied the 
necessity in this case. Lord Ashburton maintained that 
the necessity had existed, but nevertheless apologized. 

The boundary controversies were settled by a treaty of 
August 9, 1842. Webster and Ashburton abandoned the 
Webster-Ash- attempt to discover the boundary intended in 
burton treaty j-^gg^ ^^^^j agreed to follow the suggestion of 
the king of the Netherlands and compromise. To compro- 
mise, however, meant the giving up of territory without first 
ascertaining whether we had title to it or not. It is conceiv- 
able that, when the territory in question is part of a state, 
this exceeds the constitutional power of the national gov- 
ernment. It was at any rate necessary to recognize Maine, 

^ E. D. Adams, "Lord Ashburton and the Treaty of Washington," Amer. 
Ilist. Review, 1912, xvii. 764-782; J. W. Foster, A Century of American 
Diplomacy (Boston, etc., 1901), 282-286. 

^ Daniel Webster, Writings and Speeches (National edition, 18 vols., 
Boston, 1903), xi. 247-269; United States Statutes, il Cong., 2 sess., ch. 257. 



RECIPROCITY, CLAIMS, BOUNDARIES, ETC. 235 

which was officially represented at the conference and of- 
ficially compensated by a provision of the treaty. Although 
Maine assented to the terms, it is possible that her dislike 
for the settlement cost Webster his last chance for the presi- 
dency in 1852. Massachusetts was also involved, having 
retained, when she permitted the erection of Mame into a 
separate state, the ownership of certain lands. She too was 
represented and recognized.^ The compromise divided the 
region disputed between Maine and New Brunswick in such 
a way as to give the former the valley of the Aroostook and 
the southern part of the valley of the upper St. John. Both 
nations were admitted to equal use of the St. John for the 
purpose of logging. This arrangement gave the' United 
States 7,015 miles and Great Britain 5,012, a settlement a 
little less favorable to us than that suggested by the king 
of the Netherlands. Our contention as to the head of the 
Connecticut river was allowed, and the old incorrect loca- 
tion of the parallel of 45 was allowed to stand, as so many 
vested rights would be disturbed by moving it. The line of 
the boundary from Lake Huron to the Lake of the Woods, 
which the Ghent commission had not completed, was also 
drawn. Thus at length, in 1842, the northern boundary 
provided by the treaty of 1783 was reduced to intelligible 
terms, except where it was frankly departed from. The few 
disputes that have since arisen have been of a minor char- 
acter and seem now all to be settled. 

The treaty also revived and expanded the extradition 
article of the Jay treaty, which had expired with the war 

of 1812. As it did not vet, however, cover em- ^ 

*L Extradition 

bezzlement, gone to Canada was for many 

years the epitaph of the dishonest American who had been 
found out. 

On one subject with which it dealt the treaty proved un- 
satisfactory. This was the slave trade, which had been 

1 Report and Resolves in relation to the North-eastern Boundary (Massachu- 
setts General Court; Senate Doc., No. 67), Boston, [1838]. 



236 AMERICAN DIPLOMACY 

the subject of a dispute that for a quarter of a century had 

been growing more acute. In 1807 Great Britain, as the result 

of a long philanthropic agitation, abolished 
Slave trade 

the trade as respected her own subjects. Once 

having repudiated it herself, she was moved by every motive, 
philanthropic and philistine, to secure its abolition elsewhere. 
While it continued anywhere, not only were her citizens de- 
prived of its profits, but her colonies were hampered by the 
competition of other regions where the slave supply was 
plentiful and cheap. Thus the wily Castlereagh and the 
beneficent Clarkson together urged abolition before Euro- 
pean congresses. 

Civilized public sentiment was ready for the movement, 
at least when unaffected by special considerations. Den- 
Difficulty of mark had preceded Great Britain in 1802, the 
suppression United States followed in 1808, Sweden in 
1813, France in 1815; Spain and Portugal yielded to financial 
and other inducements in 1817. The trade soon became 
illegal among all so-called Christian powers. Sub rosa, 
however, it continued to exist. It was necessary for a na- 
tion to possess a navy and the will to achieve, if she were to 
prevent adventurers, either of her own or of other nation- 
alities, from misusing her flag. So long as slavery existed in 
Brazil, Cuba, and Porto Rico, and the southern states of 
our country, the rewards of the trade were sufficient to induce 
men to engage in it despite the law and even in the face of 
considerable risk. 

During the last years of the Napoleonic wars England had 
almost stopped the trade by using her belligerent right of 
Great Brit- search. With peace, however, this right van- 
ain's policy ished, and her navy saw the flags of other na- 

tions fraudulently used to protect a fraudulent traffic and 
were impotent to interfere. Her great admiralty judge. 
Sir William Scott, declared in the case of Le Louis, 1817, 
that the slave trade was not piracy, and that no right of 
search existed. Great Britain, therefore, sought to obtain a 



RECIPROCITY, CLAIMS, BOUNDARIES, ETC. 237 

general agreement to a mutual right of search or visit in 
times of peace; but although she succeeded in making such 
arrangements with Spain and Portugal, she failed to obtain 
them from the Holy Alliance in 1818 and again in 1822. As 
the greatest naval power, she would obviously profit much 
by a regulation that would give her navy in time of peace 
almost as effective a police power over the ocean as it exer- 
cised in time of war, including a rich harvest of prize money. 
Interest combined with the highest ideals of patriotism and 
altruism to press her to the attainment of her goal. 

In the United States these ideals stood in a rivalry which 
grew year by year more bitter. We had agreed in the treaty 
of Ghent that both the contracting parties Attitude of the 
should use "their best endeavors to accom- United States 
plish" the abolition of the slave trade. An act of Congress 
of May 15, 1820, declared the slave trade piracy, and a 
growing element among the people of the North urged a 
continuation of this policy of exterminating a trade which 
had already been branded by all the European world. The 
nationalist spirit, however, was not prepared to permit 
Great Britain to police our flag, to renew in time of peace 
those practices which had in time of war driven us to fight. 
In the case of the Antelope, in 1825, John Marshall denied 
that our law of 1820 made the trade piracy in the interna- 
tional sense, or gave other nations any rights over our vessels, 
however employed. Between 1823 and 1825 Congress dis- 
cussed the subject of cooperating with Great Britain on the 
subject. Adams, though forced by a resolution of Congress 
to negotiate on the basis of a mutual right of search, was 
personally opposed. He wrote to Gallatin: "The admission 
of a right for the oflBcers of foreign ships of war to enter and 
search the vessels of the United States in time of peace, under 
any circumstances whatever, would meet with universal 
repugnance m the public opinion of the country." The con- 
vention drawn up bj' Rush and Canning in 1824 was rejected 
as unsatisfactory, and when Webster and Ashburton met 



238 AMERICAN DIPLOMACY 

we had not yet come to an understanding with Great Britain. 
The United States was so lax in the enforcement of her own 
law that much of the trade was carried on under the protec- 
tion of her flag, and some of it in American vessels. 

This main difficulty was augmented by questions arising 
from our domestic maritime slave trade. Vessels carrying 
Domestic slave slaves from one of our Atlantic ports to the 
^^^^ gulf states were often forced by stress of 

weather or other circumstances into British West Indian 
ports. In 1831 and 1833 slaves from the Comet and Encomium 
were released and freed by the British authorities there. 
During the Van Buren administration indemnity was paid in 
these cases, on the ground that, as slavery was permitted in 
the islands the principle of British law that slaves on reaching 
British territory or war vessels became free did not apply 
there. When, however, in August, 1834, the British West 
Indian slaves were freed, the application of the principle was 
extended to those islands. New cases occurred, as those of 
the Enterprise and Hermosa, and satisfaction was refused. 
The most important was that of the big Creole, in 1841, whose 
cargo of slaves arose, killed a passenger, took possession of the 
ship, and made the port of Nassau. Those guilty of the 
murder were executed and the remainder freed. 

These cases aroused great excitement in the United States. 
In 1840 Calhoun secured the passage by the Senate of resolu- 
Calhoun's tions declaring that a vessel "in time of peace, 

propositions engaged in a lawful voyage, is, according to the 
laws of nations, under the exclusive jurisdiction of the state 
to which her flag belongs," and that, if forced "by stress of 
weather, or other unavoidable cause" into the port of another 
friendly power, "she could, under the same laws, lose none 
of the rights appertaining to her on the high seas." In his 
speech defending these resolutions he laid down the doctrine 
that the constitution made it the duty of the national govern- 
ment, solely charged with the foreign relations of every state, 
to defend before the world the institutions of every state; 



RECIPROCITY, CLAIMS, BOUNDARIES, ETC. 239 

that the protection of the domestic slave trade was a matter 
of national obligation, and not of choice. 

These positions would seem so reasonable and clear as 
hardly to need statement, but public opinion was blurred by 
an apparent similarity with another case which L'Amistad 
during 1840 was being argued by John Quincy ^^^^ 
Adams in the supreme court. This case concerned the 
Spanish vessel, rAmistad, engaged in the Spanish domestic 
slave trade, whose cargo revolted and which was brought into 
a United States port. As it developed that these negroes had 
been recently and illegally captured, it was held that they 
were not properly slaves, but free persons kidnapped, and 
they were restored to Africa. It is possible that in strictness 
we should have turned the whole case over to the Spanish 
authorities; but the distinction between these facts and those 
involved in the Creole case, in which the negroes were without 
doubt legal slaves by the laws of Virginia and of the United 
States, was suflficient to bar its use as a precedent.^ 

Webster entered upon the discussion of these problems 
with little apparent enthusiasm. In a letter to Lord Ash- 
burton enclosing his statement of the Creole case, he said 
" Using the words of Walter Scott when he sent one of 
his works to his pubhsher — I send you my settlement of 
Creole — D — n her." No agreement was reached the Creole 
as to this and the other vessels, until after 
his return to oflSce under Fillmore; then, in 1853, a claims 
convention submitted the matter to arbitration, and Great 
Britain paid indemnity. More important was the question 
of making arrangements for the more effectual suppression 
of the slave trade. Great Britain was as insistent as ever on 
some such provision. The United States was as loath as it 
had been under Adams to permit the British navy to search 
our vessels. Finally, at the suggestion of President Tyler 
there was incorporated into the treaty a plan for the main- 

1 W. E. B. DuBois, Suppression of the African Slave-trade (New York, 
etc., 1896), 131-146, 162-167; Schuyler, American Diplomacy, ch. v. 



240 AMERICAN DIPLOMACY 

tenance by the two powers of a joint squadron off the coast 
of Africa. 

This agreement was promptly attacked by Lewis Cass, 

our minister to France, on the ground that Great Britain 

had not definitely admitted that she did not 

^aSS uCIcHlS 

the quintuple possess the right of search, and hence that she 
would in all probability actually exercise it. 
His fears had been excited by the attempt of that power in 
1842 to effect a quintuple agreement by joining with her 
Austria, Prussia, France, and Russia for such a mutual 
right. On the basis of this powerful support he believed that 
Great Britain would assert the right as established inter- 
national law. Cass therefore wrote a pamphlet attacking the 
proposal, and, acting without instructions, protested to the 
French prime minister, Guizot, and secured the defeat of the 
British plan, France finalh^ adopting the American scheme 
of a joint squadron. In this action he was endorsed by 
Webster, and was supported by an article written by Henry 
Wheaton, entitled "An Inquiry into the Validity of the 
British Claim to a Right of Visitation and Search." ^ 

Nevertheless, by 1849 Great Britain had secured treaties 
with twenty-four nations, all, except those with the United 
_ t B t ■ States and France, permitting a mutual right of 
yields visita- search. With this great weight of international 
support behind her, she justified Cass's fears by 
acting upon a claim, not indeed to search, but to visit any 
vessel suspected of the traffic in order to ascertain its na- 
tionality, a course to which she was provoked by the facts 
that otherwise any vessel flying the American flag was 
immune, and that most vessels used that flag in places where 
American war-ships were not to be found. If the vessel 
visited was not American, we did not suffer; but when, as 
often happened, it was ours, we, with our special sensitiveness 
to such liberties taken with our flag, resented the visit and 

» Daniel Webster, Works (cd. Edward Everett, 6 vols., Boston, 1851), 
V. 78-150; A. C. McLaughlin, Life of Lewis Cass (Boston, 1891), 174-192. 



RECIPROCITY, CLAIMS, BOUNDARIES, ETC. 241 

became increasingly angry. Finally in 1858, Cass himself 
having become secretary of state, the issue was forced, and 
the British government, with the advice of its law officers, 
admitted that no right of visitation existed.^ 

The American government thus successfully met the 
attempt of Great Britain to continue in time of peace a 
practice which we had unsuccessfully resisted The conflict of 
in time of war. It is uncontestably true that ^^^^^ 
in accomplishing this object we delayed the abolition of the 
slave trade to which we stood committed. It was a question 
of conflict between the national ideal of the freedom of our 
flag, strengthened later by the rising pro-slavery movement, 
and the ideal of humanitarianism. With the outburst of the 
Civil War the latter element got the upper hand in the 
national government, and in 1862 Seward ar- _ . , 

ranged a treaty providing for a limited mutual manitarian 
right of search, but protecting American 
interests by a provision for mixed courts to try the cases. 
Seward said that, had such a treaty been made in 1808, there 
would have been no Civil War; but Seward was apt to be 
hyperbolic in expression. 

The achievements of the period from 1829 to 1844 were the 
final settlement of the difficulties growing out of the Na- 
poleonic wars, and the passing of another mile- The period 
stone in the adjustment of our relationships ^^^^ *° ^^* 
with Great Britain. The latter transaction was a conven- 
tional agreement, in which it is doubtful if Webster did as 
well as John Quincy Adams would have done. The former 
was the work of Jackson, whose fearless, mannerless method 
of procedure marks the dominance of the frontier element in 
political life; it was not in accordance with rule, but it was 
characteristic and it was effective. More was done for the 
furtherance of commerce than one would have expected from 
the ruling elements in the United States at that time. To no 
small extent this progress must be considered as due to the 
1 McLaughlin, Leuns Cass, 323-330. 



242 AMERICAN DIPLOMACY 

presence on our staff of a man of Henry Wheaton's pre- 
eminent ability; but a factor still more important lay in the 
character of the commerce itself, now almost wholly non- 
competitive and universally desired. The period as a whole, 
however, would be barren were it considered in relation to 
actual achievements alone. Its chief interest lies in the rise 
of new problems which it left for the future to solve. 



CHAPTER XIX 
EXPANSION 

In a report to the Mexican Congress in 1830, the secretary 
of foreign affairs, Lucas Alaman, analyzed the process of 
American expansion: ^ Alaman's 

"The United States of the North have been TmlAn °L. 
going on successfully acquiring, without awak- pansion 
ening public attention, all the territories adjoining theirs. 
Thus we find that, in less than fifty years, they have suc- 
ceeded in making themselves masters of extensive colonies 
belonging to various European Powers, and of districts, still 
more extensive, formerly in the possession of Indian tribes, 
which have disappeared from the face of the earth; proceed- 
ing in these transactions, not with the noisy pomp of con- 
quest, but with such silence, such constancy, and such uni- 
formity, that they have always succeeded in accomplishing 
their views. Instead of armies, battles, and invasions, which 
raise such uproar, and generally prove abortive, they use 
means which, considered separately, seem slow, ineffectual, 
and sometimes palpably absurd, but which united, and in 
the course of time, are certain and irresistible. 

"They commence by introducing themselves into the 
territory which they covet, upon pretence of commercial 
negotiations, or of the establishment of colonies, with or 
without the assent of the Government to which it belongs. 
These colonies grow, multiply, become the predominant 
party in the population, and as soon as a support is found in 
this manner, they begin to set up rights which it is impos- 
sible to sustain in a serious discussion, and to bring forward 
ridiculous pretensions, founded upon historical facts which 

1 House Exec. Docs.. 25 Cong., 2 sess.. No. 351, pp. 312-322. 
243 



244 AMERICAN DIPLOMACY 

are admitted by nobody. . . . These extravagant opinions 
are, for the first time, presented to the world by unknown 
writers; and the labor which is employed by others, in offer- 
ing proofs and reasonings, is spent by them in repetitions 
and multiplied allegations, for the purpose of drawing the 
attention of their fellow-citizens, not upon the justice of the 
proposition, but upon the advantages and interests to be 
obtained or subserved by their admission. 

"Their machinations in the country they wish to acquire 
are then brought to light by the appearance of explorers, 
some of whom settle on the soil, alleging that their presence 
does not affect the question of the right of sovereignty or 
possession to the land. These pioneers excite, by degrees, 
movements which disturb the political state of the country 
in dispute. . . . When things have come to this pass, which 
is precisely the present state of things in Texas, the diplo- 
matic management commences: the inquietude they have 
excited in the territory in dispute, the interests of the colo- 
nists therein established, the insurrections of adventurers 
and savages instigated by them, and the pertinacity with 
which the opinion is set up as to their right of possession, 
become the subjects of notes, full of expressions of justice 
and moderation, until, with the aid of other incidents, which 
are never wanting in the course of diplomatic relations, the 
desired end is attained of concluding an arrangement as 
onerous for one party as it is advantageous to the other." 

In the History Teachers^ Magazine for February, 1914, 
Dr. Jameson of the Carnegie Institution analyzed the 
Process of ex- natural history of American expansion. He 
pansion omitted the stage of diplomatic claim-making 

by the United States and added the final step, — that of 
popularizing annexation by arousing our fears that some 
other power would annex if we did not. Otherwise these two 
analyses harmonize completely, except that Alaman finds 
the motive force in the malevolent scheming of the govern- 
ment, Dr. Jameson in the working of natural forces. Al- 



EXPANSION 245 

though the process described is not entirely realized in every 
case, and has not always been crowned with success, it may 
well be used as a basis for the study of the development of 
our interests in the territory of the Indian tribes, in the 
Natchez district, West Florida and East Florida, Texas, 
Oregon, California, Nicaragua, Cuba, Hawaii, Samoa, the 
Philippines, Panama, and even Mexico. 

From the time of the Florida treaty, in 1819, germination 
began which was to result in the addition of several of these 
branches to the mother trunk. The imagina- Frontier char- 
tion of the pioneer had already passed the ^ctenstics 
limits of the Louisiana Purchase, and, unrestrained by its 
western bounds, had begun to busy itself with the lands be- 
yond. The Americans engaged in these movements were sim- 
ilar to those who took the field in the long struggle for the 
Ohio valley, except that unlike them they were character- 
ized by a loyalty to the United States that at times over- 
rode their immediate material interest. At this period the 
diplomatic problem never took the form of defending our 
own undisputed territory, as it had from 1783 to 1815; rather, 
it was a matter of struggling for disputed regions, as in the 
ease of Oregon, or for those undeniably belonging to other 
nations, as in the case of Texas and California. The issue 
was never so vital to our existence as was the struggle for 
the mouth of the Mississippi, and it only intermittently held 
the attention of the public or of most political leaders. 

The signing of the Florida treaty was immediately fol- 
lowed by the rush of far-sighted speculators into Texas. 
Linking the old order with the new. General Texan colon- 
Wilkinson joined the number. These men were ^^*^ 
attracted by the fact that now for the first time could secure 
land titles be obtained in that region of which the ownership 
had previously been so uncertain. They were attracted, too, 
by the Spanish land system, which was based on the principle 
of granting favors to managers, or empresarios, who on their 
part guaranteed to introduce a specified number of colonists. 



246 AMERICAN DIPLOMACY 

Nothing, except possibly bribes, had to be paid down, and 
the terms were such that land could be offered to the in- 
dividual settler at twelve and a half cents an acre, as against 
the United States price of a dollar and a quarter.^ 

Mexico, succeeding Spain, continued the same liberal 
policy. No less anxious than Spain had been during the Con- 
Mexico's federation to people her frontiers, she encour- 
liberaiity aged the incoming settler by an absence of 
curiosity concerning his religion, by allowing the importa- 
tion of slaves from the United States, and by an almost 
entire governmental neglect. In return for his land the 
settler had only to accept Mexican citizenship. 

This halcyon period did not last long, for Great Britain 

was pressing upon Mexico an anti-slavery policy. In 1823 

gradual emancipation was adopted, in 1824 

Omens . . „ , i m • i t ■«<->/-»» 

importation oi slaves was prohibited. In 182o 

and 1827 Adams, who as secretary of state had resented the 
failure to insist on our claim to Texas, now as President at- 
tempted to cover the error by purchasing the country. He 
urged Mexico to sell all or part of the region between the 
Sabine and the Rio Grande, using the same line of argument 
he had employed with Goulburn in 1815 concerning the Indian 
buffer state, and with de Onis in 1819 concerning Florida. 
He pointed out that the American settlers would never submit 
to Mexican authority, that the natural progress of American 
settlement could not be stopped by paper bonds. "These 
immigrants," said he, "will carry with them our principles 
of law, liberty, and religion, and, however much it may be 
hoped they might be disposed to amalgamate with the ancient 
inhabitants of Mexico, so far as political freedom is concerned, 
it would be almost too much to expect that all collisions 
would be avoided on other subjects. . . . These collisions 
may insensibly enlist the sympathies and feelings of the 
two Republics and lead to misunderstandings." Mexico 
had better now, he urged, accept compensation for territory 
' G. P. Garrison, Texas; a Contest of Civilizations, Boston, etc., 1903. 



EXPANSION 247 

which she would soon lose without it. Adams's arguments 
were emphasized by the proclamation of the "Fredonian 
republic" in 1826. Although this proved to be a premature 
movement, since the Americans were not yet "the predomi- 
nant party in the population," it nevertheless foreshadowed 
what their grumblings at the anti-slavery policy of the gov- 
ernment, which was as yet unenforced in Texas, would lead 
to when the settlers became strong.^ 

Impelled by these facts, by the warnings of Ward, the 
British minister, and by its Cassandra, Alaman, the Mexican 
government changed its policy. In 1826 it Alarms and 
forbade the importation of colonists from coter- excursions 
minous nations; after 1828 it encouraged the formation of 
colonies on the border composed of persons not from the 
United States; in 1827 it joined the territory of Texas to 
the state of Coahuila to keep the former under better con- 
trol; in 1829 it declared the immediate emancipation of 
slaves; and finally, in 1830, it prohibited immigration from 
the United States. The first actual manifestation of this 
policy in Texas itself was the establishment of Mexican 
military posts in 1831. Immediate revolt followed, and 
separation would probably have resulted, had not the re- 
volting Texans combined with Santa Anna, who was con- 
ducting a simultaneous revolution in another part of Mexico 
to defend the constitution against President Bustamante. 
The two movements triumphed in 1832, and for a moment 
the Texans posed as Mexican patriots, defenders of the 
Mexican constitution. 

Meantime the colonists began to be succeeded by the 
"explorers" mentioned by Alaman, men drawn to Texas not 
only by the cheapness and richness of the soil, but by the 
prospect of military glory and political advancement in the 

» Sir H. G. Ward, Mexico in 1825-7; L. G. Bngbee, "Slavery in Early 
Texas," Political Science Quarterly, 1898, xiii. 389-413, 648-668; John and 
Henry Sayles, A Treatise on the Laws of Texas relating to Real Estate, 2 vols., 
St. Louis, 1890-92. 



248 AMERICAN DIPLOMACY 

conflict which it did not require great acumen to foresee. 
Foremost among them was Samuel Houston, the picturesque 
Houston and governor of Tennessee, who in 1829 had pictur- 
Jackson esquely vanished from that position, to be dis- 

covered later living among the Indians on the Texan border. 
A friend and protege of Jackson, he occasionally visited 
Washington. Undoubtedly the two talked of the future of 
Texas, which both expected to become part of the United 
States. There is no evidence or probability that there was 
collusion between them to hasten that movement, or in- 
deed that Houston himseK did hasten it. Nevertheless, his 
appointment by Jackson, in 1833, to negotiate with certain 
Indian tribes in the region introduced him commandingly to 
the Texans when, in 1835, they felt the imperative need of a 
leader. 

Santa Anna tired of the constitution that he had revived, 
and overthrew it. In the civil war which followed, the Tex- 
Texas declares ans took the losing side, and soon found them- 
independence selves the sole armed supporters of the Mexican 
constitution. Thrown thus upon their own responsibility, 
they could draw upon the experience of scores of groups of 
Americans similarly situated. Their first step was to or- 
ganize a committee of safety, then they called a convention, 
and finally, in 1835, after halting for a moment with a dec- 
laration of independence from the state of Coahuila, they 
declared their entire separation from Mexico, established a 
republic, and chose Houston as commander-in-chief. 

Ever since 1830 "unknown" writers had been exciting 

the interest of the people of the United States in the affairs 

,^ . of Texas, and now the first and ablest of the 
Sympathy in • ^ , * • , 

the United empresarios, Stephen Austm, came as ambas- 

States ... 

sador to the people to solicit aid. The tragic 

and heroic stories of the Alamo and Goliad, with the death 

of David Crockett, the ideal frontier hero of the time, roused 

sympathy for the Texans and hatred for the Mexicans. 

During this period there were always thousands of Americans 



EXPANSION 249 

spoiling for a fight, and in this instance, as in most other 
cases, sympathy was not the only fuel relied on to kindle 
the flames. Those who came to the rescue were promised 
not glory and gratitude alone, but land as well, — three hun- 
dred and twenty acres for three months' service, twice that 
amount for six months, four times as much for a year. The 
war fever spread over the southern states, and with decreas- 
ing violence as far north as New York. Thousands volun- 
teered to assist their late fellow-countrymen, whom, after 
an interval of Mexican citizenship and one of independence, 
they expected to welcome into what was now the "Old " 
Union. ^ 

As individuals, companies, regiments, and even fleets left 
the country, either crossing the frontier on the road from 

Natchatoches to Nacogdoches or sailing from _, , . , 

° . ° Popular Viola- 

New Orleans, their departure was triumphantly tion of neu- 

heralded by the press. Yet, when the collectors 

of customs were asked to enforce the neutrality act, they 

explained that they could discover no organized expeditions, 

but only ships with individual passengers and cargoes of 

arms. It was not, indeed, till 1838 that the law authorizing 

them to detain vessels on "probable cause" was enacted. 

Still, a nation is responsible if its laws are not sufiicient, and 

Mexico had good reason to complain. The record of the 

administration, however, was clear, its orders were correct, 

and probably no administration could have repressed the 

determination of the people to aid Texas. 

If the responsibility for this volunteer assistance rested 

fundamentally upon the people, the executive was more 

directly responsible for the action of its agents. Gaines and the 

In the spring of 1836, when Santa Anna was ^^^^ 

sweeping northward over Texas and Houston was retreating 

before him, the frontier of the United States was disturbed 

by rumors of impending Indian outrages to the southeast 

1 G. L. Rives, The United States and Mexico, 1821-1848, i vols.. New York, 
1913. 



250 AMERICAN DIPLOMACY 

among the Seminole, and to the west along the Mexican or 
Texan border. General Gaines was authorized to call out 
militia to aid the regular army, and to take proper measures 
to defend our citizens on both frontiers, even to occupying 
Nacogdoches, a Mexican town, but within territory to which 
the United States maintained a rather fantastic claim. This 
, town occupied an important strategic position, for it was at 
I the junction of the coast and inland roads through Texas. 
Gaines so far deviated from his instructions as to concentrate 
on the Texan border, paying little attention to Florida, and 
in July he occupied Nacogdoches.^ 

This occupation had no actual effect on the Texan move- 
ment, for the crucial and final battle of independence had been 
Jackson and won by Houston at San Jacinta on April 20. 
Gaines Nevertheless, the Mexican minister withdrew 

from Washington by way of protest. Here again the ad- 
ministration was able to show a clear record. It repri- 
manded Gaines for calling more militia than was needed 
to the western frontier; and, although it justified the occupa- 
tion of Nacogdoches as necessary for self-defence, it ordered 
the town to be evacuated now that danger from the Indians 
had passed. When we remember, however, that Gaines knew 
he was acting under a President who had been elected, if not 
because of, at any rate in spite of, a similar over-interpretation 
of orders to defend the frontier by entering foreign territory, 
and that Jackson knew that Gaines had that knowledge, it is 
hard to escape the belief that an excess of zeal was expected 
of him. Gaines's misfortune was that his action came too late 
to be significant. 

As the Nacogdoches episode reminds one of the invasions of 
Florida before annexation, so the whole conduct of the 
Texan affair seems like a less able imitation of Adams's han- 
dling of that question. Jackson's administration had for years 

^ H. von Hoist, Constitutional and Political History of the United States 
(8 vols., Chicago, 1879-92), ii. i548-7U; T. M. Marshall, A Ilislonj of the 
Western Boundary of the Louisiana Purchase, 1S19-1841, Berkeley, 1914. 



EXPANSION 251 

been carrying hand in hand negotiations for the purchase of 
Texas and for the settlement of American private claims 
against Mexico. Adams had secured acknowl- jackson and 
edgment of the claims in the first place, and ^^^^^ 
had paid for the territory by assuming them; during the 
negotiations he had preserved neutrality between Spain and 
her revolting colonies. On December 21, 1836, Jackson, 
having received the report of a special agent sent to in- 
vestigate the condition of Texas, left the question of the 
recognition of the new republic to Congress with the words, 
"Prudence, therefore, seems to dictate that we should still 
stand aloof ... at least until the lapse of time or the course 
of events shall have proved beyond cavil or dispute the 
ability of the people of that country to maintain their 
separate sovereignty." On February 6, 1837, he sought to 
bring the question of claims to an issue by a message one 
stage more advanced than that which led to trouble with 
France — that is, by recommending reprisals. At the same 
time he was discussing unofiicially with Santa Anna, who was 
at Washington, and with the Texan representatives, a re- 
newed proposal of purchase. 

The plan was too delicate for its originators to carry out 
and broke down altogether. Mexico, with a persistent de- 
termination to reconquer Texas, refused to sell. Congress 
decided that one more solemn demand for jus- Policy of Con- 
tice be made upon Mexico for our claims before ^^^^ 
reprisals should be authorized, but voted recognition of the 
Texan republic. With the strings thus tangled, the proposal 
to secure Texas from Mexico became impracticable. 

Promptly upon recognition the new republic made formal 
a request for annexation which had already been in- 
formally presented. This request at once Annexation 
revealed those fundamental differences which '^^"^^^^ 
were threatening the United States with disunion. Monroe 
had in 1819 refused to press our claims to the region because 
of the effect which such action might have upon our national 



252 AMERICAN DIPLOMACY 

existence at a time when passions were inflamed by the 
struggle of pro- and anti-slavery forces over the Missouri 
question. Those forces were in 1837 and 1838 more bitter 
than ever before. Webster wrote, May 7, 1836 : " We are in a 
peck of troubles here, and I hardly see our way through. My 
greatest fear at present, is of a war about Texas. , . . This 
whole subject appears to me to be likely to bring into our 
politics new causes of embarrassment, and new tendencies to 
dismemberment." John Quincy Adams, who in 1819 had 
been unwilling to give up our chance to Texas, now, in a 
speech running from June 15 to July 8, 1838, put all his 
powers into opposition to the acceptance of annexation. 
He believed as firmly as Alaman did that our whole move- 
ment into the region was a conspiracy; the only difference 
was that Alaman believed it a conspiracy of the government 
and included Adams among the conspirators, whereas Adams 
believed it a conspiracy of the "Slavocracy" supported by 
Jackson. Van Buren, to whom the decision came upon his 
succession to the presidency in 1837, was not inclined, in the 
face of a divided opinion at home, to press the question of 
annexing territory still claimed by Mexico; and the party 
managers were unwilling to take up an issue that was sure to 
divide their organizations. The question of annexation was 
dropped.^ 

Texas was therefore left to shift for herself, a juvenile 

republic with American frontier energy and a dash of Spanish 

braggadocio. She quickly accumulated a navy 

1 6X&S flS all ^ ^ 

independent and a debt. Always at war with Mexico, 
hostilities were intermittent. Her soldiers 
when unfortunate, as when captured in an expedition against 
Santa Fe, remembered their United States origin and sought 
protection as citizens. At other times they threatened to 
plant their banners in the halls of the Montezumas, to annex 

' G. P. Garrison, Diplomatic Correspondence of the Republic of Texas, Amer. 
Hist. Assoc, Reports, 1907, vol. ii., 1908, vol. ii.; also his "First Stage of the 
Movement for the Annexation of Texas," Amer. Hist. Review, 1904, x. 72-96. 



EXPANSION 253 

California, and become a transcontinental nation. Though 
ever prepared for and expecting annexation to the United 
States, they nevertheless grew contented with independence. 
Indeed, the actual disadvantages were not great; when the 
history of Texas is compared with that of one of our states at 
the same stage, as Arkansas, the difference is not apprecia- 
ble.i 

Internationally there were even advantages in her position. 
In 1837 France recognized her independence and Great 
Britain accorded trading privileges to her. Texas and 
The latter country delayed recognition until ^''®^* Bntain 
1842, but negotiation was constant. Texas and Great 
Britain were commercially complementary : the one produced 
cotton, the other manufactured it. Great Britain, while 
anxious for political reasons to prevent the United States 
from acquiring the long Texan coast line which would give 
command of the gulf of Mexico, was equally unwilling to see 
Texas fall under the United States tariff system, again after 
1842 dominated by the manufacturing interests of the North. 
She also wanted to secure an independent source of cotton 
supply. The Texans, on their part, realized that Great 
Britain's influence in Mexico was potent, and that she might 
exert it to secure Mexican recognition of the new republic. 
It was, indeed, largely by her good offices that an amnesty 
was in 1843 arranged between the two countries. 

The element of discord was slavery. Texas assented to a 
treaty on the maritime .Uive trade which granted a mutual 
right of search, but she maintained slavery and slavery in 
the overland slave trade with the United "^^^^^ 
States. A strong English public opinion resented the crea- 
tion of a new slave-holding republic out of the free territory 
of Mexico. Lord Aberdeen, the British minister of foreign 
affairs, July 31, 1843, instructed his representative in Mexico 
to urge the Mexican government to make the "absolute 

^ E. D. Adams, British Interests and Activities in Texas, 1888-18^6, Balti- 
more, 1910; J. H. Smith, The Annexation of Texas, New York, 1911. 



254 AMERICAN DIPLOMACY 

abolition of the principle of slavery " a condition of her final 
recognition of Texan independence. In August, 1843, in 
reply to a question by Lord Brougham as to the attitude of 
the government toward slavery in Texas, he said that his 
unwillingness to tell what was being done "did not arise 
from indifference, but from quite a contrary reason." This 
reply naturally aroused interest in the United States. The 
retention of slavery might prevent a harmonious understand- 
ing between Great Britain and Texas; but, should slavery be 
abolished, their interests would be cemented together, as 
against the United States, by the strongest ties. The fear of 
British influence was spurring the United States to renewed 
interest in annexation. 

Texas was not the only fruit that hung ripe, unpicked, and 

threatened by alien hands in 1843. In 1795 Fauchet had 

written of the explorations of Alexander 

Joint OCCU- T • • 1 r~w »<Ti' • 

pancy of Ore- McKenzie m the Oregon country. If this 
^°° discovery is followed up," said he, "the English 

will hasten without doubt to forestall the Americans by 
establishments to put them in a position to secure possession 
of this important point." Neither government, however, 
seemed disposed to press the matter. In 1818 the United 
States and Great Britain had agreed to a joint occupancy for 
ten years, and by 1828 this agreement had been continued 
indefinitely, but made terminable by a year's notice. Spain 
and Russia had been eliminated from the question by their 
treaties with the United States and Great Britain, and by 
the same treaties the bounds of the territory we jointly 
occupied had been fixed by the parallels of 42 on the south 
and 5 1 40 on the north. ^ 

Although American vessels frequented the coast, and 
Astoria had been founded in 1811, the use of the territory 

* H. II. Biincrofl, Oregon, 2 vols., San Franci.sco, 1886-88; Robert Green- 
how, Memoir, Iliston'ral and Political, on the North-ivc.tt Coast of North Am- 
erica, Washington, 1840; Sir Travers Twiss, The Oregon Territory, New York, 
etc., 1846. 



EXPANSION 255 

under the joint occupancy fell at first chiefly to Great Britain, 
represented by the Hudson Bay Company. The only posts 
for many years were its fur-trading establish- Early interest 
ments, and the only settlements those of its "^ Oregon 
retired French-Canadian trappers; the only government was 
that of its factor, Dr. McLaughlin. During the twenties our 
government concerned itself somewhat with the subject, 
A Virginian representative, John Floyd, sought to have Con- 
gress secure our rights by the formation of military establish- 
ments, and Monroe recommended such action in his message 
of 1824. With the retirement of Floyd in 1829, however, the 
matter dropped out of public notice. 

That basis of actual occupancy which always seems to 
be necessary in order to arouse a genuine interest in such 
questions in the United States was furnished The mission- 
by a new type of pioneer. The wave of mis- "^ movement 
sionary impulse whose beginning was marked in 1819 by 
Bishop Heber's hymn "From Greenland's Icy Mountains" 
touched all Christian organizations; it started anew the 
attempt to Christianize the world. In such movements, as in 
other things, there are fashions, and among the most popular 
subjects for conversion in the thirties was the American 
Indian. A series of events attracted the missionary interest 
to Oregon. Various American denominations sent mis- 
sionaries to the region, till by 1840 not only were there some 
seventy or eighty Americans in the country, but the raising 
of the money which sent and kept them there had aroused a 
widespread popular interest. Oregon had become a house- 
hold word.^ 

This renewed interest was naturally reflected in the gov 
ernment. In 1835 Lewis F. Linn appeared as senator from 
Missouri, the state which, by means of the river of the same 
name, was most closely, or rather least distantly, connected 
with Oregon. He at once made himself champion of the new 

' R. E. Speer, Missions and Modern History, i vols.. New York, etc., 
(1904]. 



256 AMERICAN DIPLOMACY 

country by bringing in a bill to organize the Columbia 

river region as Oregon territory. The bill itself was re- 

, . ported adversely; but, as ten thousand copies 
Renewed in- ^ ,. •, i • , , 

terest in Ore- of the report were distributed, it proved to be 

^°°^ a new organ for arousing popular attention. 

In 1840 a squadron under Captain Wilkes was sent to visit 
the coast; in 1842 Tyler called attention to the problem; 
and in the same year, Adams, as chairman of the house com- 
mittee on foreign affairs, urged the sending of a special 
mission to Great Britain to negotiate. Linn continued to 
press his bill in various forms. Of one of them his colleague 
Benton said, "I now go for vindicating our rights on the 
Columbia, and as the first step toward it, passing this bill, 
and making these grants of land, which will soon place thirty 
or forty thousand rifles beyond the Rocky Mountains." 

While the material reason for immediate legislation was the 
desire for land titles, which could not be secured until the 
British and question of sovereignty was determined, there 
v^ries^in o"e"- developed a further motive to hasten action. 
8°^ The same impulse which moved Protestant 

American denominations to enter the Oregon field stirred the 
church of Rome also. French Canadian priests, under the 
protection of the Hudson Bay Company, were active there, 
and in their work with the Indians were more successful 
than the Protestants. Their American rivals, therefore, 
scented a great conspiracy of the priests, the Hudson Bay 
Company, and the British government to drive the Amer- 
icans out of Oregon and secure it for Great Britain, and en- 
deavored from 1839 onward to impress their views on the 
government at Washington.^ 

The degree to which popular interest had been stimulated 

was shown in 1842, when an Indian agent, sent out to treat 

' W. I. Marshall, Acquisition of Oregon and the long suppressed Evidence 
about Marcus Whitman, i vols., Seattle, 1911; E. G. Bourne, The Legend of 
Marcus Whitman, in his Essays in Historical Criticism (New York, 1901), 
3-109; Joseph Schafer, Oregon Pioneers and American Diplomacy, in Turner 
Essays, 35-55. 



EXPANSION 257 

with the tribes of the region, was joined as he went west 
from Washington by nearly one hundred and fifty prospec- 
tive settlers. In the spring of 1843, other Settlement of 
groups of emigrants from Missouri, Arkansas, Oregon 
Illinois, and neighboring states began promptly, without pre- 
concert, to direct themselves toward Independence, the 
starting-point for the long journey to the Pacific. With 
wagons labelled "For Oregon," and with all their possessions, 
about a thousand came together and pushed on to their 
goal. In Oregon they found a self -formed provisional gov- 
ernment of the American settlers, begun in 1841 and per- 
fected in the spring of 1843. When, in 1844, the French 
Canadians and British took a hand in this government, 
Oregon, like Texas, was ready for picking. The difiiculty 
lay in the rival British claims, and in the inability of Great 
Britain and the United States to agree upon a division of 
territory. 

More desirable in the minds of many than either Texas 
or Oregon was the California country. Although it was an 

undisputed portion of the Mexican republic, ^ ,., . 
, ^ 11 California 

the same elements were nevertheless present 

here as in other regions, but in different proportions. Settlers 
from the United States were few. There were some mer- 
chants on the coast, merchant vessels touched its ports, and 
after 1843 some pioneers came down from Oregon. Few as 
they were, however, they were not without importance, for 
the Mexican population itself was so inconsiderable that it 
would take but a small influx of Americans to make the latter 
the "predominant party." In 1844 the British consuls at 
Tepic and Monterey wrote of the rapid American emigration 
to the coast. ^ 

The interest of Great Britain in California was keen. 

British subjects as well as Americans were resident there, 

in 1842 a consul had been sent to Monterey, and a British 

naval officer had been commissioned to investigate condi- 

1 Paullin and Paxon, Guide, 178-187. 



258 AMERICAN DIPLOMACY 

tions. In 1844 the British consuls reported that a speedy 
separation from Mexico was inevitable. Already Great Bri- 
Great Britain tain had been asked if she would aid a revolu- 
and California tion, and the foreign office had considered the 
possibility of California's putting herself, when free, "under 
the protection of any other power whose supremacy might 
prove injurious to British interests." In 1845 the foreign 
office tendered its advice to Mexico with regard to the safety 
of California. Great Britain, it was said, desired that Cali- 
fornia remain Mexican, she feared that France might secure 
it, and still more that it might fall to the United States. 

The latter country was awake to the situation, or at least 

to a situation. Here again she believed that Great Britain 

not only barred her way but sought the prize. 

States and In 1842 an American squadron was sent to the 
California 4. j r 1 e u 4. 

coast, and, on a talse rumor 01 war between 

the United States and Mexico, seized Monterey; an act for 
which, of course, apologies were tendered. From 1842 Cap- 
tain Fremont was in and about the region at the head of a 
formidable exploring expedition of United States troops. 

The government, moreover, was considering the ques- 
tion. In 1842 Waddy Thompson, our minister to Mexico, 
wrote to Webster expatiating on the desirability of annexing 
California. "Our Atlantic border," he urged, "secures us 
a commercial ascendency there. With the acquisition of 
Upper California, we should have the same ascendency on 
the Pacific. ... I believe that this [the Mexican] govern- 
ment would cede to us Texas and California, and I am thor- 
oughly satisfied that this is all we shall ever get for the claims 
of our merchants in this country." Webster authorized a 
negotiation: "You will be particularly careful," he wrote 
to Thompson, "not to suflPer the Mexican Government to 
suppose that it is an object upon which we have set our hearts, 
or for the sake of which we should be willing to make large 
remuneration. The cession must be spoken of rather as a 
convenience to Mexico, or a mode of discharging her debts." 



EXPANSION 259 

Possibly our willingness to use our pecuniary claims to secure 
the cession of California made us the more ready to accept 
the rumored statements that Great Britain was endeavoring 
to do the same.^ On April 4, 1844, B, E. Green wrote to 
Calhoun that California was organized for independence. 

The year 1844, therefore, found three great diplomatic 
problems pressing for solution. Different as they were in 
their details, they all concerned the acquisition Diplomacy and 
of new territory, and they were all urged not pol't^^s 
only as desirable in themselves but as necessary to check the 
advance of British interests. Of the three, that relating to 
Texas was in itself the least difficult; for after eight years of 
independence, and an independence that was recognized 
by the leading nations of Europe, Mexico's claim to her ter- 
ritory had nothing to rest upon. The reason why Texas 
was still out of the United States was not diplomatic, but 
political; it lay in the institution of slavery. Her problem 
could not be solved without a linking of diplomacy and 
politics such as there had not been since 1815. 

^ J. S. Reeves, American Diplomacy under Tyler and Polk (Baltimore, 
1907), 100-102. 



CHAPTER XX 
ANNEXATION 

When Tyler succeeded to the presidency he privately an- 
nounced his determination to annex Texas. His secretary 

^ , , of state, Webster, however, was unenthusiastic, 

Tyler's nego- . ,11 rr«i 

tiation with and no action was taken till 1843. Then 

Webster resigned. Tyler was at this time un- 
connected with either political party; he had nothing to lose 
by a disturbance of political conditions, and he decided to 
press the matter. He was still delayed, however, by the 
death of Webster's successor, Hugh S. Legare, after six 
weeks' service; but the next secretary, Abel P. Upshur, took 
the negotiation seriously in hand. It was conducted in se- 
crecy, with the ostensible purpose of preventing speculation 
in Texan securities. The Texan administration, with Hous- 
ton at the head, was slow to take the bait. It feared that 
the treaty might be rejected by our Senate, and Texas thus 
be left in an embarrassing position, an objection that Upshur 
met by arguments which appear to have been more satisfying 
to Texas than they could have been to his own conscience. 
The treaty drawn up, there remained the question as to the 
status of Texas between the signing of the treaty and its 
acceptance by the Senate. This would be Mexico's last 
chance, her amnesty with Texas would be at an end, Great 
Britain would no longer stand in the way of hostile action, 
and the probability was that she would at least reek her 
anger on the frontier, if not her vengeance on the nation. 
At this point Upshur was killed.^ 

In seeking to replace him, Tyler's primary object was to 
obtain political strength, for the diplomatic task was almost 
^ Reeves, American Diplomacy under Tyler and Polk. 



ANNEXATION 261 

finished. Unfortunately for him, however, he was brought 
by the intervention of friends to offer the position to 
John C. Calhoun, probably of all his genera- _ ., , 

tion the man most capable of diplomatic great- comes secre- 
ness, but one whose name alone was sufficient 
to defeat the treaty, and who did not leave his name to 
work alone. Calhoun, having obtained by inquiry the opin- 
ion that both the Texas and the Oregon question could be 
settled, accepted the office. 

On April 11, 1844, he answered the question as to the pro- 
tection of Texas during the discussion of the treaty, by the 
following note: "During the pendency of the x t f 
treaty of annexation, the president would deem nexation con- 
it his duty to use all the means placed within 
his power by the constitution to protect Texas from all 
foreign invasion." An enumeration of these powers might 
have been less impressive than the general statement of 
them; but the latter proved sufficient for its purpose, and 
on April 12 the treaty was signed. 

Calhoun came into office with a firm conviction of a pur- 
poseful policy of aggrandizement on the part of Great Britain. 

He wrote to Francis Wharton, May 28, 1844: ^ ,^ 

.' "^ . ' . Calhoun's 

" As to myself, I am of the impression, if we views of Great 
shall have the folly or wickedness to permit 
Great Britain to plant the lever of her power between the 
U. States and Mexico, on the Northern shore of the Gulph 
of Mexico, we give her a place to stand on, from which 
she can [brave?] at pleasure the American Continent and 
control its destiny. There is not a vacant spot left on the 
Globe, not excepting Cuba, to be seized by her, so well cal- 
culated to further the boundless schemes of her ambition 
and cupidity. If we should permit her to seize on it, we 
shall deserve the execration of posterity. Reject the treaty, 
and refuse to annex Texas, and she will certainly seize on it. 
A treaty of alliance commercial and political will be forthwith 
proposed by Texas to her, and I doubt not accepted. This 



262 AMERICAN DIPLOMACY 

for yourself." On April 29, 1844, he had received a letter 
from a Texan friend announcing: "We are all prepared if 
we are spurned again from the Union to enter into a com- 
mercial free trade treaty with G. B. and France on a guar- 
anty of our Independence which we can now have and the 
advantages it promises us in the cotton trade renders it very 
desirable." With free trade the United States would lose 
its market for manufactured goods in Texas. The Texan 
planters, supplied with low-priced British goods, could 
produce more cheaply than those of the United States. 
Texas would therefore draw away from us population and 
wealth, and, backed by the British naxy, become our political 
as well as economic rival. ^ 

Although having to his hand such nationalistic argu- 
ments, based on a sincere conviction, which would have 
Lord Aber- been absorbed by most of our population on 
deen s note suspicion, Calhoun chose to rest his case on 

totally different grounds. He found among Upshur's papers 
a letter of Pakenham, the British minister at Washington, 
enclosing a note from Aberdeen written in answer to a re- 
quest from Edward Everett, our minister at London, by di- 
rection of Upshur, for an explanation of Aberdeen's state- 
ment in the House of Lords concerning his interest in the 
question of Texan slavery. Aberdeen, admitting an interest 
in Texas, denied that Great Britain had any "occult de- 
sign . . . even with reference to slavery in Texas." He 
said, however, that it was well known that Great Britain 
wished to see slavery abolished "throughout the world. 
But," he added, "the means which she has adopted and will 
continue to adopt, for this human and virtuous purpose, are 
open and undisguised. . . . The Governments of the slave- 
holding states may be assured that, althougli we shall not 
desist from those open and honest efforts which we have 
constantly made for procuring the abolition of slavery . . . 

* Calhoun, Correspondence, ed. J. F. Jameson, Amer. Hist. Assoc., Rep. 
1899, vol. ii. 



ANNEXATION 263 

we shall neither openly nor secretly resort to any measures 
which can tend to disturb their internal tranquillity, or 
thereby to affect the prosperity of the American Union." 

This note, though cleverly guarded in its language at 
essential points, was substantially untrue, for it was intended 
to appear to deny the rumor that Great Britain was urging 
JMexico to insist upon abolition in Texas as a condition of 
recognizing her independence. It was also discourteous in its 
reference to our established domestic institutions. The 
disclaimer of any intention to disturb our "internal tran- 
quillity " could certainly not be accepted by our government 
on its face value : we could scarcely allow Great Britain to be 
a judge of what would create such a disturbance. When a 
nation deliberately asserts a policy of meddling with the rest 
of the world, other nations have a right to demand, not 
general assurances as to her methods, but explicit itemization. 

Lord Aberdeen's note came to Calhoun both as a confirma- 
tion of suspicion and as an instrument of action. He at once 
engaged Pakenham in a correspondence grow- Caihoun- 
ing out of it, which afterwards formed his case co^rrespond- 
before the Senate for the support of the treaty. ^'^^^ 
He stated that upon hearing of the avowed determination of 
Great Britain to attempt the abolition of slavery throughout 
the world, the United States had to consider her own safety; 
since, therefore, the abolition of slavery in Texas would 
imperil the internal tranquillity of the nation, a treaty of 
annexation had been arranged as the only means of prevent- 
ing such a misfortune. To Aberdeen's expressed hope for 
abolition in the United States he replied by an argument 
designed to show that emancipation would prove a national 
calamity. He did not even refrain from making use of the 
hackneyed comparison between the American slaves and the 
British laboring classes.^ 

Calhoun's statement that Aberdeen's note had caused the 
making of the treaty was, of course, untrue. Essentially, 

1 Calhoun, Works, vols, iv.-v. 



264 AMERICAN DIPLOMACY 

however, it represented the truth, for the note put into defi- 
nite public form rumors that had been coming to his ears, 
Critique of particularly from the London letters of his con- 
Calhoun's case fi^ant, Duff Green, who quoted the assertion of 
the Texan representative, Ashabel Smith, that England would 
guarantee a loan to Texas to pay the expenses of emancipa- 
tion. To Calhoun, though not to the President, the main 
motive for action lay in the danger to slavery. His defence of 
slavery as an institution has been criticised, and perhaps in 
form is open to criticism; but Aberdeen's remarks on the 
subject demanded some answer. There is no doubt that 
Calhoun believed in the case as he presented it. He wrote to 
James H. Hammond, May 17, 1844: "There is not a doubt 
in my mind, that if Texas should not now be annexed, she 
is lost to our Union. The Senate has been furnished with 
evidence to that effect, perfectly conclusive." 

The defect in Calhoun's argument was that his reasoning 
was logical rather than political, and that his logic did not 
Failure of Cal- reach to his conclusion. His basis was that of 
houn's case j^j^ slave-trade resolutions, — the obligation of 
the national government to protect any institutions of any 
state. His second step, that it was the duty of the national 
government to protect the internal tranquillity of the state, 
was just as sound; it had been used by Dana in 1809 in 
reference to the South when he was discussing trade with 
the negro state of Hayti. His slip came in asserting that 
the one method of performing these duties was the annexation 
of Texas. The national government has discretion as to 
methods, and annexation was not the only one possible. The 
fact is, Calhoun was so anxious to fix the doctrine of national 
protection upon the country that his eagerness blinded him 
to this weakness in his logic. He sacrificed Texas to political 
theory. 

The unpopularity of Tyler and the fear of the slavery issue 
brought to the front by Calhoun combined to defeat the 
treaty. Annexation, however, could no longer be held off. 



ANNEXATION 265 

Wiser politicians took it up and changed the basis of argu- 
ment. In a strong letter Jackson roused the public apprehen- 
sion of England's political ambitions, and the Defeat of the 
Democratic convention had the good sense to ^^^^ 
unite northern with southern interests by joining Oregon with 
Texas. Referring to our lost settlement at Astoria and our 
claim to Texas abandoned in 1819, the convention resolved, 
"That our title to the whole of the territory of Oregon is 
clear and unquestionable; that no portion of the same ought 
to be ceded to England or any other power; and that the re- 
occupation of Oregon and the reannexation of Texas at the 
earliest practicable period are great American questions." 

The election of the Democratic candidate, James K. Polk, 
was accepted as a national mandate in favor of annexation. 
But, if annexation was to come, many believed . ati n b 
that it must come quickly. Texas was now the joint resolu- 
scene of a dramatic contest between the Amer- 
ican representative. Duff Green, specially sent to hold the 
republic in line, and Elliot and Saligny, the British and 
French representatives respectively, who, backed by their 
governments, had dropped the slavery question and were 
promising recognition by Mexico on condition of a promise 
by Texas to maintain her independence. In order to hasten 
action by the United States, it was proposed that, since a 
two-thirds majority for a treaty could not be secured in the 
Senate, annexation be brought about by a joint resolution of 
the two houses. The constitutionality of such a method was 
at least obscure, for previously the power to annex had been 
implied from that to make treaties. The constitutional argu- 
ment, however, played little part in the discussion of the 
main question, which absorbed most of the session from 
December, 1844, to March, 1845. At length, on March 1, 
the resolution was passed, but added to it was a curious 
amendment allowing the President either to proceed with 
annexation by the authority thereby given or to negotiate a 
treaty. 



266 AMERICAN DIPLOMACY 

This double-headed proposition was accepted by a bal- 
ancing number of senators with the understanding that the 
Tyler annexes whole matter would be left to Polk for settle- 
Texas ment, and with the purpose that he should 
find himself fully empowered to act quickly. Tyler, however, 
anticipated action by Polk by dispatching a messenger to 
Texas announcing that she might enter the union on the 
terms of the joint resolution. Polk acquiesced in the accom- 
plished fact, and the centre of interest shifted from Washing- 
ton to Texas. ^ 

The proposal to Texas was that she be admitted as a state, 
with such government as should be adopted by the people 
Struggle for and assented to by the United States. This 
"*^ plan, in contrast with Calhoun's treaty, which 

resembled previous annexation treaties in merely providing 
for admission to statehood at some future time, virtually 
constituted an enabling act, pushing statehood one step 
further forward. It provided that Texas should hold her 
public lands for the payment of her debt; whereas Calhoun 
had agreed that the United States would receive the lands and 
pay the debt. The question of boundary it left open to 
settlement by the United States. It further provided that 
Texas was not to be divided into more than four states, of 
which those north of the parallel of 36 30 should not permit 
slavery, — points for which there were no equivalents in the 
Calhoun treaty. The president of Texas, Anson Jones, re- 
ceived the proposal with dignity. He encouraged Elliot to 
press Mexico for recognition, and when the Texan convention 
met, July 4, 1845, he offered it the alternatives of independ- 
ence, recognized by Mexico on condition that it be main- 
tained and with the special friendship of Great Britain and 
France, or annexation. Without hesitation the convention 
chose the latter, and in December Texas became a state of 
the Union. Although chagrined at the result, Great Britain 
and France were nevertheless, as they had indeed repeatedly 
1 T. H. Benton. Thirty Years' View, 2 vols.. New York, 1854-56. 



ANNEXATION 267 

declared, not prepared to resist forcibly; hence nothing now 
remained necessary for a complete settlement of the question 
but acceptance by Mexico.^ 

Polk came into office with the intention of securing Texas, 
Oregon, and California. To the accomplishment of this 
formidable task he brought, not great intellec- 
tual ability, but an iron will, a directness of 
purpose, and a conviction of the morality of his intentions 
inherited from his Scotch-Presbyterian ancestry, — just the 
equipment for the man of action after discussion has cleared 
and defined the issue.^ He found the first part of his 
three-fold undertaking practically finished, and he ac- 
cepted the results. Of the two remaining tasks, the 
Oregon controversy, of which the details had been worked 
out by Gallatin in 1827, had just been still more closely 
defined in a correspondence between Calhoun and Paken- 
ham.^ 

In these letters the British practically acknowledged our 
title from the forty-second parallel to the south bank of the 
Columbia, and we practically acknowledged The Oregon 
their rights north of the forty-ninth parallel, i^^estion 
Within the undistributed middle lay Puget Sound and the 
tip of Vancouver island. Both countries claimed Spanish 
recognition of their claims, the British by the Nootka Sound 
convention of 1790, we by our treaty of 1819. By discovery 
and exploration we had the stronger claim to the Columbia 
valley, the British to that of the Fraser. In actual settle- 
ments Great Britain had held the advantage; but the United 
States was gaining, though most of her settlers sought the 
valley of the Willamette, a southern branch of the Colum- 
bia. In 1844 Aberdeen offered to arbitrate, but the 
United States refused. 

^ Anson Jones, Memoranda and Official Correspondence relating to the Re- 
jmblic of Texas, New York, 1859. 

2 J. K. Polk, Diary, ed. M. M. Quaife, 4 vols., Chicago, 1910. 
* Calhoun, Works, vol. v. 



268 



AMERICAN DIPLOMACY 



Calhoun expected that Polk would request his continuance 
in the position of secretary of state, but Polk failed to do so, 
Polk's Oregon for his views differed fundamentally from those 
P°^^y of Calhoun. Calhoun feared both the inten- 

tions and the power of Great Britain, he believed that she 
could and would maintain her views by force. He was of 




OREGON BOUNDARY CONTROVERSIES 



that generation of American statesmen who, confident in our 
growing strength, preferred to leave such disputes open, 
trusting to the future. Polk intended to settle the question at 
once, and chose as his secretary James Buchanan, a man of 
like mind. 

The latter offered Great Britain the line of 49 , which had 
been satisfactory to Calhoun. Upon its rejec- 
tion, which had been anticipated, Polk took up 
the question in his message of December, 1845. 
Referring to the Monroe Doctrine, which he was the first 
President to revive, he said: "It should be distinctly an- 



Polk revives 
the Monroe 
Doctrine 



ANNEXATION 269 

nounced to the world as our settled policy that no future 
European colony or dominion shall with our consent be 
planted or established on any part of the North American 
continent." He rejected the idea of any balance of power as 
applied to America. Finally he asked Congress to authorize 
the termination of the joint occupancy with a year's notice, 
as provided in the convention of 1828. He declared that our 
title "to the whole Oregon Territory" had already been 
"asserted, and, as is believed, maintained by irrefragable 
facts and arguments." 

Congress debated the proposal with unusual seriousness 
and ability. Polk's views found an echo in a style of ex- 
pansionist oratory new to the country and not Oregon policy 
confined to Congress. The phrase "Fifty- of Congress 
four-forty or fight" rang through the land. Calhoun and 
Webster, on the other hand, pleaded for moderation, express- 
ing their belief that the President's policy would result in 
war, and that war would end in the loss of Oregon to the 
British fleet. In the end the President was authorized to give 
notice of the termination of the joint occupancy; but this 
notice was to be joined with the declaration that it was 
hoped that the step would lead to a speedy amicable adjust- 
ment of the differences between the two governments, — an 
apparent invitation for a proposal of compromise.^ 

The British government was still under the leadership of 

Sir Robert Peel, whose friendliness to the United States 

had resulted in the Webster-Ashburton treaty. „ .^. ^ 

Bntisn policy 
It was, indeed, the same government whose 

machinations, real and exaggerated, in Texas and Cali- 
fornia had been so effectively used in furthering Texan 
annexation. The desire of Great Britain to prevent 
that annexation, however, had been no more inimical 
than the desire of a merchant to secure a new cus- 

1 See speeches by Calhoun and Webster in their Works; also Joseph Schafer, 
"The British Attitude toward the Oregon Question, 1815-1846," Amer. 
Hist Review. 1911, xvi. 273-294. 



270 AMERICAN DIPLOMACY 

tomer rather than let him go to a rival. Her methods 
in the use of her influence with Mexico had perhaps been 
"unfair"; but if these did indicate a slight moral obliquity, 
and if Aberdeen's letter on slavery was lacking in tactfulness, 
such lapses did not come from any hostility or from a failure 
to realize that the friendship of the United States was more 
important to Great Britain than that of any other country 
on the American continent. Great Britain was looking after 
her own interests to be sure, but her ministers, Aberdeen and 
Peel, were friendly to the United States. Their friendship, 
moreover, was greatly stimulated in 1846 by the fact that 
both nations were just taking the first steps in the new policy 
of free trade, which, if persisted in, would cement their 
destinies by an ever-increasing bond of trade. 

The British government, therefore, having previously 
ascertained that its proposal would not be contumaciously 
Oregon agree- rejected, offered to compromise on the forty- 
™*°* ninth parallel to the strait of Georgia, and 

thence to the ocean, with the right of free navigation on the 
Columbia. This was more than Great Britain had ever 
before offered, though less than the United States had ex- 
pressed its willingness to accept. It gave us Puget Sound, it 
gave Great Britain the tip of Vancouver island, thus dis- 
tributing the best harbors on the northwest coast. Polk 
accepted this proposal as a basis, and a treaty was drawn up. 
Before concluding it, however, Polk endeavored to relieve 
himself of responsibility for compromising in a case in which 
he had asserted our title to the whole to be "clear and un- 
questionable," by resorting, as has so seldom been done, 
to the "advice" of the Senate. That body advised signing, 
and thereby practically committed itself to ratify the treaty, 
which was promptly done in June, 1846. 

Thus was settled the last stretch of our northern boundary, 
although the division of the smaller islands caused more 
trouble, which was adjusted by arbitration in 1871. Polk's 
bluster and the wild speeches in Congress probably made 



ANNEXATION 271 

some difference in the result. Whenever we have encoun- 
tered Great Britain we have been obHged to compromise, 
but bluff on our part has often hastened agree- __ 
ment. The line decided upon was a reasona- issue in Ore- 
ble one, and, after the following of the forty- ^°° 
ninth parallel to the Rockies in 1818, was probably inevita- 
ble, regardless of claims or of diplomacy. The protrusion of 
Vancouver island south of forty-nine was disagreeable, but 
on general principles the island was best considered as a 
whole. In rousing popular agitation Polk was playing with 
fire; it was a typical example of "shirt-sleeve" diplomacy. 
On the other hand, a continuance of the joint occupancy in 
the face of the actual settlement of the region might well have 
given rise to frontier squabbles more dangerous than the 
whiff of spread-eagle oratory. 

On April 28, 1846, Polk accepted the British offer as to 
Oregon, subject to the consent of the Senate; on May 11 he 

advised war with Mexico. The conjunction ., . 

"" Mexico and 

of the events was fortunate, but probably not Texan annexa- 
vital, for Great Britain had already signified 
her intention not to support Mexico. At Polk's inauguration 
the war had not been expected by those best informed. 
Webster wrote to his son, March 11, 1845, that Mexico would 
doubtless "be very angry" over the annexation of Texas, 
but, he added, "that she will plunge at once into a war, 
though it is possible, is as yet not thought probable, by the 
best informed here. . . . Mr. Polk and his cabinet will 
desire to keep the peace." 

Although Mexico withdrew her minister, as she had done 
in 1837, she did not rush into war. There existed, however, 
at the outset a question that required careful The Texas 
handling on the part of the United States. As boundary 
usual, we had annexed not territory alone, but a boundary 
controversy. The Mexican territory of Texas had been 
bounded to the south by the Nueces river; the republic of 
Texas had actually occupied the south bank of this river; the 



272 



AMERICAN DIPLOMACY 



constitution of Texas described the national boundary as the 
Rio Grande to its source, and thence northward to the forty- 
second parallel. This constitutional boundary, which 
swept in Mexican settlements on the north bank of the Rio 
Grande near its mouth, together with the important post of 
Santa Fe in New Mexico, had been fixed in order to provide a 
basis for compromise. Calhoun had recognized its lack of 
actuality, and the joint resolutions, seeking to avoid any such 
difiiculty as had arisen with Maine two years before, had 




given the United States power to settle the boundary. Mean- 
time, the question as to the protection of Texas until her 
formal admission, which could not be consummated till 
December, 1845, came up. Calhoun, after the rejection of 
his treaty, had promised such defence as the President could 
give while negotiations were in process; but this did not mean 
much. Polk was in an easier position; for the United States 
had assented to the annexation, but until July 4, 1845, Texas 
had not. During the interval he wished to send troops, but 
President Jones said they were not necessary. When Texas 



ANNEXATION 273 

accepted our offer this dfficulty was removed,^ and Polk 
could do as he wished. 

On June 15, 1845, Polk ordered General Taylor to "select 
and occupy, on or near the Rio Grande del Norte, such site as 
will consist with the health of the troops, and Taylor in 
will be best adapted to repel invasion, and to '^^^^^ 
protect what, in event of annexation, will be our western 
frontier." Against this order our representative in Texas, 
A. J. Danelson, protested on the ground that, since Texas had 
previously accepted a truce leaving Mexico in possession of 
the north bank of the Rio Grande, and had evinced a dis- 
position to settle the question by negotiation, things might, 
"to say the least ... be left by the United States in the 
same condition." On July 8 Taylor was ordered not to inter- 
fere with existing Mexican military establishments in the 
disputed region, "unless a state of war should exist." On 
August 30 he was instructed as follows: "The assembling 
of a large Mexican army on the border of Texas, and cross- 
ing the Rio Grande with a considerable force, will be regarded 
by the executive as an invasion of the United States, and the 
commencement of hostilities. An attempt to cross the river 
with such a force will also be considered in the same light." 
It was obviously the intention of the administration to 
insist upon the Rio Grande boundary, at least near the 
coast. It was not, however, till January 17, 1846, that 
Taylor was explicitly ordered to the Rio Grande. 

During the same period Polk was endeavoring to open an 
approach to negotiation with Mexico. An agent, Parrott, 
accompanied the withdrawing Mexican minis- siideii's in- 
ter, and in June reported that Mexico would structions 
not go to war over Texas. Polk thereupon appointed John 
Slidell minister to Mexico. He was, first of all, to warn 
Mexico of the insidious designs of foreign nations and of our 

^ Rives, The United States and Mexico; William Jay, Revietc of the Causes 
and Consequences of the Mexican War, Boston, etc., 1849; C. H. Owen, The 
Justice of the Mexican War, New York, etc., 1908. 



274 AMERICAN DIPLOMACY 

determination to prevent them. Then he was to insist upon 
the payment of the claims of American citizens, which had 
been recognized by a convention of 1839 but which re- 
mained unpaid. ReaHzing the financial inability of Mexico, 
the government instructed Slidell, "Fortunately the joint 
resolution of Congress for annexing Texas to the United 
States presents a means of satisfying these claims, in perfect 
consistency with the interests as well as the power of both 
republics." The indisputable character of the Texan claim 
to the Rio Grande near its mouth, was to be asserted; but 
a question concerning the right to New Mexico was ad- 
mitted, and Slidell was authorized to offer to assume claims 
for five million dollars in return for the title to that ter- 
ritory. 

The most important portion of the instructions, however, 
referred to the reopening, but in a new spirit, of the question 
Polk and Cali- in regard to California which Thompson and 
fornia Webster had broached in 1843. Under the 

pressure of events the situation there was rapidly ripening. 
Rumors of revolt were multiplying, and Polk did not seek to 
blast the growth. In October, 1845, Larkin, our consul at 
Monterey, was instructed: "Whilst the president will make 
no effort and use no influence to induce the Californians to 
become one of the free and independent states of this Union, 
yet if the people should desire to unite their destiny with 
ours, they would be received as brethren, whenever this can 
be done without affording Mexico any just cause of com- 
plaint." Lieutenant Gillespie was sent to confer with Larkin, 
Commodore Stockton was ordered to report with his squad- 
ron at Monterey, and Fremont was exploring California. 

In the midst of these happenings, Slidell was instructed to 
call the attention of Mexico to the fact that she had small 
Mexico and chance of maintaining her hold upon California, 
California ^^^ ^j^^^^. Q^^^^^ Britain and France were both 

ambitious to obtain it. He was to say that the United States 
would never permit its cession to either of these powers, but 



ANNEXATION 275 

would herself pay Mexico liberally for possession, — from 
twenty to twenty-five million dollars according to the inclu- 
sion or the exclusion of the peninsula of Lower California. 
Polk was himself determined to secure at least the bay of 
San Francisco. 

With such instructions Slidell arrived in Mexico. The 
government of that country was expecting the United States 
to explain the annexation of Texas; that, to its siidell in 
mind, was the primary question. Accordingly, Mexico 
it refused to treat except with a commissioner sent for that 
express and sole purpose. As a fresh revolution was in 
progress, Slidell awaited the result, hoping for reception by 
the new government. Paredes, the successful contestant, 
was, however, more hostile than Herrera, whom he had turned 
out. He at length did what had been so often surmised with- 
out foundation, — offer California to Great Britain to hold as 
a security for a loan. When the offer reached her, however, 
she declined; the security was no longer Mexico's to offer. 
Toward Slidell he pursued the policy of his predecessor by 
persistently refusing to receive him, till by the middle of 
March Slidell gave up hope of accomplishing anything on the 
existing basis of facts and returned to the United States. 

Polk and Buchanan had long before reached this decision, 
and determined to change the facts. The change was to be 
not in the instructions themselves but the . 

method of pressing them. War was to be rec- 
ommended. Such drastic action, however, must, to receive 
popular support, have been preceded by a patient negotiation 
such as to their minds Slidell had just carried out. It should 
also come after a settlement of the Oregon question, not be- 
cause Polk expected war with Great Britain, but because the 
possibility of such a war would serve to enhearten Mexico and 
diminish the moral effect which he hoped would follow his 
threat. Both these conditions being fulfilled, on Saturday, 
May 9, the decision was taken, although there was still reason 
to fear the reception of the message by Congress. 



276 AMERICAN DIPLOMACY 

On Sunday news arrived at Washington from Taylor on 

the frontier. Since January he had been in camp on the 

Rio Grande, "right in the enemy's country, 

** ^yflr exists " . 

and actually occupying their corn and cotton 
fields," as one of his officers wrote. Mexico took the 
attitude that this occupation constituted war. On April 24 
Paredes declared, "Hostilities then have been commenced 
by the United States"; but he disclaimed the right to 
declare war until the Mexican Congress assembled. The 
tinder was ready, however: on April 26 Mexican and 
United States troops met and fought. It was of this 
encounter, that Polk heard. It afforded a more appealing 
if not more solid cause for war than the failure of negoti- 
ation. Contrary to his usage, therefore, he prepared his 
message on Sunday, and sent it to Congress the next day. 
May 11, 1846. "The cup of forbearance had been ex- 
hausted even before the recent information from the frontier 
of the Del Norte. But now, after reiterated menaces, Mexico 
has passed the boundary of the United States, has invaded 
our territory and shed American blood upon the American 
soil . . . war exists, and, notwithstanding all our efforts to 
avoid it, exists by the act of Mexico herself." 

Polk regarded war not as an object, but as a means: he 
believed that his ends could be obtained without fighting. 
Polk and Having deprived Mexico of the hope of British 

Santa Anna assistance, he entered into negotiations with 
Santa Anna, the exiled Mexican hero, who was in Havana. 
On June 7 Commander Alexander Slidell MacKenzie, who 
had been sent to confer with him, reported that he had ex- 
plained to Santa Anna the President's intentions as to bound- 
aries and other questions, and that Santa Anna had expressed 
his friendship for the United States as well as his enlightened 
views for the government of Mexico, and had given certain 
advice with regard to General Taylor's movements. Ac- 
cordingly the United States allowed Santa Anna to pass the 
blockade, and watched with pleasure his rapid success in 



ANNEXATION 277 

establishing himself in control of Mexico. She anticipated 

a speedy ending of hostilities, and a prompt and happy 

negotiation with the new Mexican government. Santa 

Anna, however, on gaining power, sought to establish it 

upon the only basis on which it could continue to exist: he 

put himself at the head of the national forces to resist the 

United States. Thus we not only were at war but were also 

obliged to fight. 

On May 13, 1846, Buchanan proposed in the cabinet that 

our announcement to foreign nations of the fact that we 

were at war with Mexico be accompanied by ^ , , 
11 • 1 11 • 1 • Treaty of 

a declaration that we would acquire nothing Guadeloupe 

but the Rio Grande boundary. Polk, however, ^° 

refused to sanction such a promise. "I will not tie up my 
hands by any such pledge," he declared. "In making peace 
with our adversary, we shall acquire California, New Mexico, 
and other further territory, as an indemnity for this war, 
if we can." In accordance with these ideas, Nicholas P, 
Trist, chief clerk of the state department, was in April, 1847, 
commissioned to accompany the army and to make peace 
whenever he got the chance. Santa Anna twisted him about 
his fingers throughout the summer, and in the autumn Polk 
recalled him. The successes of the army, however, rendered 
Santa Anna's intrigues useless, except as a means of securing 
money for himself. When, September 14, 1847, the city of 
Mexico fell, the whole of Mexico became demoralized and 
its government became anxious to negotiate. Trist, although 
having now no official position, nevertheless negotiated a 
treaty at Guadaloupe Hidalgo on February 2, 1848. 

By the time this document reached the United States that 
country was a hustings for the discussion of war. Those 
who opposed it and its conduct and its pur- Anti-war feel- 
poses were of the better-educated class; they "^^ 
possessed the greater literary ability; they produced careful 
briefs, studied histories, and imperishable satires, and their 
voices have outlasted those of their opponents. The loudest 



278 AMERICAN DIPLOMACY 

voices at the time, however, and the most popular pens, 
were those that became more and more imbued with the war 
spirit. A clamor for the whole of Mexico arose. 

The "Hard" faction of the New York Democracy said 
of the war: "It is no more than the restoration of moral 
Expansionist rights by legal means"; the field for work is 
feeling "opened to us by the conduct of Mexico, and 

such moral and legal means are offered for our use. Shall we 
occupy it.f* Shall we now run with manly vigor the race that 
is set before us? Or shall we yield to the suggestions of a 
sickly fanaticism, or sink into an enervating slumber? . . . 
We feel no emotion but pity for those whose philanthropy, 
or patriotism, or religion, have led them to believe that 
they can prescribe a better course of duty than that of the 
God who made us all." Nor was the feeling sectional. The 
National Era, an antislavery organ, favored the absorption 
of Mexico, state by state. From England, George Bancroft, 
our minister, WTote to Buchanan: "People are beginning 
to say that it would be a blessing to the world if the United 
States would assume the tutelage of Mexico," — the first 
appeal of the British investor for United States protection. 
Buchanan himself in cabinet discussion said, "We must 
fulfill that destiny which Providence may have in store for 
both countries." 

With this rising wave of enthusiasm Polk had no sym- 
pathy. From the beginning his purpose had been to annex 
Texas, Oregon, and California, and so his pur- 
pose remained. He would not imperil what he 
had won, by waiting for the doubtful result of the next elec- 
tion. Distasteful and irregular as Trist's conduct had been, 
and his negotiations feeble and even improper, Polk seized 
upon his treaty as the only means of bringing a prompt end 
to the war and of checking projects of further conquest. He 
sent it to the Senate on February 21, 1848, recommending 
the striking out of one article; on March 10 it was accepted, 
against the vote of Webster, who wished to acquire no ter- 



ANNEX^iTION 279 

ritory at all, and of Hannegan of Indiana, who wanted all 

Mexico. 

The treaty gave us Texas to the Rio Grande, New Mexico 

including Arizona, and California, with the free navigation 

of the Colorado and other rivers. Mexicans re- 

. ,, 11. •. .1 Terms of peace 

mammg m the ceded territory were to become 

incorporated into the United States. We agreed to pay 
Mexico fifteen million dollars, to exonerate her from all claims 
of American citizens up to the date of the treaty, and our- 
selves to satisfy such claims to the extent of three and a 
quarter million dollars. Two articles were of special interest, 
the seventeenth, which specifically provided for the revival 
of the treaty of commerce of 1831, and the twenty -first, 
which in a lame and hesitating manner introduced into our 
diplomacy the idea of permanent arbitration. 

With the acceptance of this treaty the third great acces- 
sion of territory within three years had been consummated. 
In each case movements long germinating had Poik's accom- 
reached fruition. Texas was over-ripe, Oregon pl^shment 
at practical maturity, California was hastened by the hot- 
house influence of the other two. Polk, the "dark horse," 
whom "no one knew" at the time he was nominated, had 
pushed through with relentless energy and indifferent skill 
the most ambitious diplomatic program with which any 
President had ever entered office. It is evident that his 
task had consisted, not in the delicate manipulation of con- 
flicting interests, but in the constant reiteration of the will 
of a dominant power. 



CHAPTER XXI 

DIPLOMACY AND POLITICS, 1848-1861 

Exhilarated by our annexations, we no longer, in the 
period between the Mexican and Civil wars, feared Europe. 
The star of empire had crossed the Atlantic, 
"European monarchies" had become "effete." 
They were still malevolent, but it was no longer necessary 
for us to defer crises. Our hour had struck; destiny indi- 
cated our line of march. Expansion had become a national 
conviction; the American continents would become united, 
not under our influence, but under our flag. 

This belief in expansion, however, was not imperialism. 
Our faith in the universal applicability of our political sys- 
tem was as strong as ever. The Spanish- 
Republicanism . . , 1 • ■ 1 • 1 
Americans were to be incorporated into the 

Union, not to be subject to it. For a time, indeed, our ardent 
republicanism, no longer forced to be on the defensive, seemed 
likely to involve us in a policy of interference in Europe. The 
revolutions of 1848 stirred us almost as much as had the first 
French revolution or that of Spanish America. The Demo- 
cratic Convention of that year resolved " that, with the recent 
development of this grand political truth of the sovereignty 
of the people and their capacity and power for self-govern- 
ment" which was "prostrating thrones and erecting republics 
on the ruins of despotism in the Old World," it felt a renewed 
duty to defend liberty at home. This was extremely discreet, 
and our action was confined to a prompt recognition of the 
new government of France, and the sending of our first 
diplomatic representative to the Papal States in appreciation 
of the liberal sentiments with which Pius IX. came into the 
pontificate. When, however, in 1851, Louis Kossuth came 

280 



DIPLOMACY AND POLITICS, 1848-1861 281 

to this country with the avowed object of securing aid for 
a new struggle in Hungary designed to estabhshed repub- 
licanism and independence, sympathy seemed about to 
plunge us into European politics. It may have been for- 
tunate for us that Polk had recently revived our interest in 
the Monroe Doctrine; but it was probably the fundamental 
popular conception on which the doctrine rested that held 
us in check and caused the enthusiasm which Kossuth 
aroused to exhaust itself in champagne and oratory. 

Our expansionist spirit, self-limited by the ocean and 
based on republicanism, was also non-military. Seward, most 

genial of expansionists, said in 1861 at St. Paul ^ ,. . . ,. 
° . .... Individualism 

that he saw Russia and Great Britain building versus im- 

on the Arctic Ocean and in Canada the out- 
posts of his own country, and that he expected that the 
future capital of our expanded native land would be in the 
valley of Mexico; but he continued to assert what he had 
said in 1846, "I would not give one human life for all the con- 
tinent that remains to be annexed." The action of Congress, 
moreover, continued to be based on the principle that the 
army should be just sufficient to maintain order on the 
frontier and the navy to protect our merchant marine. Pres- 
ident Pierce's first message does show a tendency to stretch 
the principle to cover a substantial increase in the navy, but 
the most ardent of the expansionists, Buchanan, showed no 
appreciation of a connection between a policy of expansion 
and prepared military strength. Destiny was to furnish 
her own instruments, of which the peaceful infiltration of 
armed American immigrants was the chief. 

That this popular conviction did not materialize during 
this period into actual acquisition is in part due to external 
obstacles, and in part to the fact that diplo- j _ ^ 

macy was not only subordinated to politics politics on di- 
but was even actively employed for political 
ends. Politicians and statesmen alike endeavored to relieve 
the pressure of the conflict over slavery by pointing to ques- 



282 AMERICAN DIPLOMACY 

tions which would rouse a national interest; they feared those 
subjects that would embitter sectionalism. Webster wrote 
in regard to a grandiloquent dispatch which he had sent to 
Hiilseman, the Austrian representative, that his purpose was 
to "touch the national pride and make a man feel sheepish 
and look silly who should speak of disunion." The habit of 
making stump speeches in diplomatic documents became 
common; Everett made his in a declaration against European 
interference in Cuba, Marcy his on the case of Martin 
Koszta. Diplomatic policies, therefore, stood always at- 
tendant upon those of politics and fared as secondary inter- 
ests always do. 

Of the men who directed affairs, Buchanan was the most 
conspicuous. Secretary of state under Polk, minister to 

Great Britain from 1853 to 1856, and President 
Buchanan „ i i i • 

from 1857 to 1861, he had experience and con- 
siderable dialectic skill. He had also purpose; oblivious of the 
necessity of domestic policies, he made expansion his pro- 
gram, and himself the leader of the movement. He lacked 
force, however, to push his policies to conclu- 
sion or even to an issue. ^ President Pierce was 
a lesser light of the same group. Of the secretaries of state, 
Clayton is remembered chiefly for his treaty 
with Bulwer, which has proved to be our 
most entangling agreement with a foreign power since 
Webster, our first treaties with France. Webster and 

Everett Everett were both worthy of the reputation 

of the oflBce, though neither particularly enhanced his own. 
Cass, under Buchanan, had already made 
his career and now added to it merely his 
extinction of Great Britain's claim to the right of visitation." 
William L. Marcy, serving under Pierce, caused a ripple 
of amusement and annoyance by his famous circular order 

* James Buchanan, Works, ed. J. B. Moore, 12 vols., Philadelphia, etc., 
1908-11. 

* McLaughlin, Leivis Cass. 



DIPLOMACY AND POLITICS, 1848-1861 283 

of June 1, 1853, that all our representatives were to confine 
their sartorial ambitions to "the simple costume of an Amer- 
ican citizen." The diplomatic uniforms which 
had been developed by the practice of our min- 
isters were accordingly discarded for trousers and frock or 
evening coats; we became sans culottes. The long-lived joke 
about the American minister who was mistaken for a waiter 
was soon born. With this exception, Marcy was not trivial; 
he became more fully secretary of state, more conversant 
with the whole field of our diplomacy, and more universally 
active in dealing with it than had any secretary since John 
Quincy Adams. 

During the fifties there were rumblings of administrative 
reform along many lines, but there was neither the will to 
perform nor the evolution of any practicable ^. 
scheme. In 1856 a general act was passed and consular 
systematizing the whole diplomatic service. 
The positions were graded, salaries were fixed, fees were 
regulated, and a method of control was outlined. Never- 
theless, appointments grew to be more and more at the mercy 
of politics and more and more unsuitable. Most notorious 
was that of Pierre Soule to the court of Spain, in the face of 
the fact that his personal history, to say nothing of his per- 
sonal characteristics, was sure to produce trouble. The ex- 
pansion of our commerce began to arouse a special interest 
in our consular service, with the result that in 1856 an act 
was passed providing for the appointment of twenty-five 
"consular-pupils," who were, on showing themselves com- 
petent, to be promoted. This act was repealed in 1857, but 
it indicated a desire to release that service from the perils 
of rotation in office.^ 

Commerce, though but lamely supported by our consuls, 

was flourishing without interfering with our isolation. Our 

exports still consisted of non-competitive products, but in 

bulk these had increased beyond expectation. The growth 

1 Fish, The Civil Service and the Patronage, 139-140, 183. 



284 AMERICAN DIPLOMACY 

of cotton production and of its consumption in Europe had 
made that commodity one of the leading features of inter- 
Character of national trade. Europe had passed the point 
our commerce ^f self-sufficiency in food supply, and drew 
more and more from our farms. The development of our 
manufactures rendered a corresponding increase in our im- 
ports unnecessary, and for the first time the balance of direct 
trade was in our favor. The indirect trade was of steadily 
diminishing significance; our exports of foreign goods in 1836 
amounted to about fifteen per cent of our total exports, in 
1856 to about five per cent only. This did not mean that 
we imported fewer of such articles of trade as Chinese silks 
and teas ; it meant that we kept them. 

This commercial prosperity was shared by the merchant 
marine. Seventy-five per cent of our imports and exports 
Merchant were carried in American vessels, and owing 

manne ^^ ^^le bulky character of the exports, this meant 

an immense tonnage. By 1860 we had surpassed Great 
Britain. Maintained since 1828 on a basis of equal treat- 
ment as to port and customs regulations in the case of nearly 
all countries, our merchant marine was also fostered by the 
government, which not only continued the bounties on fish- 
ing but inaugurated in 1846 a short-lived policy of subsidies 
to assist in our competition for the fast-mail traffic. The 
subsidies were, however, discontinued before the end of this 
period.^ 

Chiefly, however, the energy of the government was dis- 
played in preparing the way for commerce by means of di- 
Commercial plomacy. Between 1845 and 1861 the United 
treaties States continued her policy of making Amer- 

ican commerce respected by enforcing the claims of her 
citizens, mainly for injuries to person and property received 
in Spanish- American countries. The integrity of commerce 
she better assured by the formation of extradition treaties 
with most of the German states, Austria, France with whom 
^ Coman, Industrial History, 264-266. 



DIPLOMACY AND POLITICS, 1848-1861 285 

a first treaty on the subject had been made in 1843, Sweden 
and Norway, Colombia, and the Two Sicilies. First treaties 
of commerce were made in Europe with Belgium, Mecklen- 
burg-Schwerin, Oldenburg, and Switzerland; in Spanish 
America with the Argentine Republic and Paraguay, as well 
as with Bolivia and Peru, which had now separated, and 
with Costa Rica, Guatamala, and Salvador, which had for- 
merly been included in our general treaty with Central 
America. In the near East we made a first treaty with 
Persia. 

The most important commercial treaty was that nego- 
tiated by Marcy, in 1854, with Great Britain in behalf of 
Canada. Arranged on the basis of reciprocity. Reciprocity 
it harmonized the growing difficulties of the with Canada 
Newfoundland fisheries, by submitting some points to ar- 
bitration, and by securing to us certain desired privileges, 
in return for which the Canadians were given the right to 
import their fish into the United States free of duty. It 
also reciprocally exchanged, subject to a reservation of 
rights, the navigation of Lake Michigan by the British for 
that of the St. Lawrence and the canals between the Great 
Lakes and the ocean by the Americans. The arrangement 
was for twelve years. ^ 

The most interesting field for diplomatic effort, however, 
was the Pacific. That ocean was filled with our shipping. 
The whale fishery was at its height, whale oil Trade in the 
was the most prized illuminant, and we were the ^ 

foremost nation in the pursuit. The whalers, often three years 
away from home, were forced to frequent the islands and 
coasts of the whole ocean, and the American flag became 
everywhere familiar. Amid these sturdy little craft shifting 
nervously about, following their quarry, passed the superb 
clippers, whose voyages, never deviating, from New York to 

^ Chalfant Robinson, A History of Two Reciprocity Treaties [New Haven, 
1904]; C. D. Allin and G. M. Jones, Annexation, Preferential Trade, and 
Reciprocity, Toronto, [1912]. 



286 AMERICAN DIPLOMACY 

Canton could be measured almost to the day, to whom disas- 
ter was a word almost unknown. Sailing with the others to 
the Horn, but then hugging the west coast of South America, 
had lately come the nondescript fleet bearing adventurers 
to the newly discovered gold mines of California. From 
the Isthmus up, the number increased, and the Caribbean 
was livelier than ever with vessels carrying from the Isthmus 
to the United States the goods brought down to its Pacific 
ports, and to the Isthmus those from the United States des- 
tined for California. The occasional wrecking of American 
vessels on the ocean coasts, as in Japan, the employment of 
islanders (Kanakas) on our vessels, and the use of Kanakas 
and Chinese labor on the Pacific slope added material for 
diplomacy. 

It is not surprising, therefore, to find these growing in- 
terests fructifying into treaty relations. In 1849 a first 
Treaties with treaty of friendship and commerce was made 
Pacific powers ^j^j^ ^-^^ kingdom of Hawaii, in 1850, one 
with the sultan of Bruni in Borneo. In 1856 a new treaty 
was made with Siam. In 1858 a treaty with China very 
much increased the opportunities in that empire which had 
been offered to us by the treaty of 1844. In particular it 
granted religious freedom in China, and provided that "any 
person, whether citizen of the United States or Chinese 
convert, who, according to these tenets, peaceably teach and 
practice the principles of Christianity, shall in no case be 
interfered with or molested." In 1854 a treaty opened up 
the tightly closed islands of Lew Chew; but most important 
of all was that made in the same year by Commodore Mat- 
thew Perry with the empire of Japan, which, till then closed 
for generations to the outside world, dates its new life from 
that event. This treaty was followed by others in 1857 and 
1858, the ratification of these last being exchanged with a 
pomp and circumstance at Washington, by a special embassy 
from Japan, which did much to arouse popular interest. 

A more special endeavor of American diplomacy during 



DIPLOMACY AND POLITICS, 1848-1861 287 

this period was to establish the principle, to which we were 
now fully committed, of the free use of international rivers 
and narrow waterways. One of the most im- Free use of 
portant of such straits was the sound between waterways 
Denmark and Sweden, for the passage of which Denmark 
charged dues. About one hundred of our vessels passed 
through every year, paying on an average about p. . . 
a thousand dollars apiece. Against this we had 
long protested, and finally in 1855 we abrogated our treaty with 
Denmark. Our action was widely approved, and Denmark 
herself suggested a convention to discuss the matter. She 
finally agreed to give up her right or claim upon the payment 
of a lump sum, of which our share was about a million dollars. 
We declined thus to recognize the existence of her right by 
paying for its surrender, and in 1857 established our point 
in a new treaty by which we agreed to pay about four hun- 
dred thousand dollars in consideration of Denmark's service 
in lighting and buoying the channel. Meantime we were 
urging the countries of South America to open to the world 
the navigation of La Plata and its branches South Amer- 
and of the Amazon, broad streams flowing »canrivers 
past several countries, and the former indeed the only outlet 
for Paraguay and for most of Bolivia. These two countries 
were naturally willing to accede to our principle, and in 1853 
the Argentine Republic opened the Parana and Uruguay, 
the essential feeders of La Plata. Brazil, however, remained 
obdurate, and was the centre of an active diplomatic pres- 
sure throughout the period.^ 

Analogous to this subject was our controversy with Great 
Britain as to the limits of marine territorial jurisdiction within 
bays more than six miles across. The ques- .^ . . 
tion was brought up by the seizure of our fish- ritorial juris- 
ing vessels within such bays, and in 1853 was 
submitted to arbitration. The decision was on the whole 

1 Schuyler, American Diplomacy, 265-366; T. J. Page, La Plata, the 
Argentine Confederation, and Paraguay, New York, 1859. 



288 AMERICAN DIPLOMACY 

in our favor, thus marking another step toward the freeing 
of the world's waters for general use. 

Prevalence and expectation of peace on our part did not 
cause us to lose our interest in the international law of war. 
International In 1854, indeed, we again became a neutral 
cooperation owing to the Crimean war between Russia and 
Great Britain, France, Sardinia, and Turkey. As usual, our 
shipping was involved; J. M. Forbes of Boston made a for- 
tune by helping provision Sevastopol. The enlistment of 
British subjects resident in America violated our position as a 
neutral, and led to a long controversy between Marcy and the 
British minister, Crampton, whom we ultimately dismissed. 
Whenever possible, we endeavored to advance our views as 
to the rights and duties of neutrality in our general treaties, 
and we made two specially on the subject, one with Russia 
in 1854 and one with the Two Sicilies in 1855. We took a 
new step in our diplomatic relationships, moreover, when in 
1854 we joined in an international act concerning the treat- 
ment of those wounded in war. In the Declaration of Paris 
of 1856, by which the principal nations of the world agreed 
to our long-maintained doctrine that free ships make free 
goods, that neutral goods in enemies' ships are free, and that 
blockades to be legal must be effective, we refused to join. 
Marcy gave as his reason our desire to exempt from capture 
all private property at sea, except when used in violating 
the laws of blockade and of contraband. We also objected 
to the first article of the Declaration, which abolished pri- 
vateering. With our large merchant marine and small navy, 
it would have been a disadvantage to us to surrender the 
right of commissioning our private vessels, unless we were 
compensated by the freedom of movement in time of war 
which the principle of immunity of enemies' goods in enemies' 
vessels would give. Nevertheless, the Declaration marked 
an important step toward that view of neutral rights upon 
which we had always, except perhaps while Pickering was 
secretary of state, insisted. 



DIPLOMACY AND POLITICS, 1848-1861 289 

A question that began to take on such importance during 
this period as to seem new was that of the position of our 
naturahzed citizens. The impressment con- g 
troversy with Great Britain had illustrated uralized citi- 
its difficulty. The rising tide of immigration 
which the lessening of the European food supply and revolu- 
tions, industrial and political, were impelling, and our re- 
doubled prosperity was attracting, to our shores, now that 
the improvement of ocean transportation had made the 
carriage of immense numbers possible, brought up the ques- 
tion with almost every country in Europe. The fact that 
these naturalized citizens had votes made the question polit- 
ical. The seizure of Martin Koszta, a Hungarian revolu- 
tionist who had declared his intention of becoming an Amer- 
ican citizen, in Turkish waters by an Austrian war ship, 
gave Marcy, in 1854, an occasion to make a public and 
forcible expression of our views. Koszta was returned by 
Austria because of the exceptional circumstances of his ar- 
rest; but, although the assertion that it is "the duty of the 
United States to afford ample and complete protection to all 
its citizens, whether at home or abroad, and whether native 
or foreign," began to be made in some form in all party plat- 
forms, no definite understanding with other countries re- 
sulted during the period. In fact, they all asserted the prin- 
ciple of indefeasible allegiance, while we asserted the right 
of individual choice of nationality.^ 

While these problems of the past and the future were not 
neglected, the special task of this period received due at- 
tention. With the extension of our population p ui „ f 
to the Pacific coast, the question of transpor- transcontinen- 
tation between the East and the new West 
assumed an importance almost as great as that of an outlet 
for the Mississippi valley had possessed until the purchase 
of Louisiana. Our territory was continuous, but the titanic 
bulk of the Rockies, the aridity of the western plains, and 
^ Moore, American Diplomacy, 168-199. 



290 AMERICAN DIPLOMACY 

the vastness of the distances rendered, not indeed communi- 
cation, but traffic by our own roads impossible. All the easier 
routes lay in foreign countries, and to secure the use of them 
was the duty of diplomacy. 

The favorite idea of the later fifties was that of a railroad. 
Experts decided that the best line was to the south, involving 
Gadsden the use of Mexican territory; but to trust 

*^®^*y such an enterprise, which must be launched 

with government aid, to the protection of that still distracted 
nation seemed impossible. Finally, by the manipulation of 
a boundary dispute and a liberal use of money, a treaty 
was arranged in 1853 by James Gadsden which granted us 
the territory needed in northern Mexico, in return for a pay- 
ment of ten million dollars. By the same treaty we secured 
the equal use, even for the passage of troops, of the isthmus 
of Tehuantepec, over which, the earlier plan for a canal 
having been given up, it was hoped to run a railroad. 

A real transcontinental railroad, however, was during 
this period merely a rather wild hope. The more practical 
Importance of improvement of the situation lay in a canal 
American across one of the narrower isthmuses, as that 

isthmuses Qf Panama or of Nicaragua, entirely outside 

of our own territory. Even as things were, the greater bulk 
of our commerce and travel from coast to coast passed over 
these isthmuses, and its protection was a national obliga- 
tion. 

The importance of these points at which the two great 
oceans approached each other so closely had been appreciated 
Formulation of from the time of their discovery; it had been 
our policy more and more appreciated as it became clear 

that except here the two continents stretched continuous 
and immense from the Arctic ice almost to that of the Ant- 
arctic. Charles V had considered the possibility of a canal. 
Miranda had envisaged their international status, and, 
liberal with his paper kingdom, had offered them to the free 
use of commerce. Clay, in his instructions to the delegates 



DIPLOMACY AND POLITICS, 1848-1861 291 

to the Panama Congress, had said of the isthmus there, "The 
benefits of it ought not to be exclusively appropriated to any 
one nation, but should be extended to all parts of the globe." 
We did not quite venture to claim this as a right analogous 
to that of navigating narrow waterways; but the principle 
was similar, and formed the basis of our policy. 

To turn this policy into action, desire for immediate use 
was necessary. Our first step, therefore, was a treaty with 
New Granada or Colombia in 1844, after the Guarantee of 
Oregon migration had begun. This arrange- the neutrality 
ment was unsatisfactory, and another treaty 
was drawn up in 1846. It provided absolute equality of use 
for the commerce and the citizens of both countries; "and," 
it went on, "in order to secure to themselves the tranquil 
and constant enjoyment of these advantages, and as an es- 
pecial compensation for the said advantages — the United 
States guarantee, positively and efficaciously, to New Gran- 
ada — the perfect neutrality of the before-mentioned isthmus, 
with the view that the free transit from the one to the other 
sea may not be interrupted — and, in consequence, the 
United States also guarantee, in the same manner, the rights 
of sovereignty and property which New Granada has and 
possesses over the said territory." Polk defended this guar- 
antee on the ground that the interests of the United States 
were highly involved, that capital would not be invested 
without such security, and that New Granada would not 
grant us the needed rights on other terms. ^ 

With the discovery of gold in California and the influx of 
population that followed, the situation became more press- 
ing, and a canal seemed an immediate prob- The Nicara- 
ability. The advantages of the route through s"^° '■°"*® 
Nicaragua over that at Panama were, however, coming to be 

^ W. F. Johnson, Four Centuries of the Panama Canal, New York, 1906; 
J. H. Latane, The Diplomatic Relations of the United States and Spanish 
America (Baltimore, 1900), 176-220; L. M. Keasbey, The Nicaragua Canal 
and the Monroe Doctrine, New York, etc., 1896. 



292 AMERICAN DIPLOMACY 

strongly urged. ^ By the organizing ability of Commodore 
Vanderbilt, that route came to be the more frequented, and 
arrangements for its protection became necessary. At this 
point we once more encountered our constant rival. Great 
Influence of Britain. She must supply a portion at least 
Great Bntain q£ ^.j^g capital required, and she was in the pos- 
session of certain special interests that seemed to many in 
1849 to give her control of the situation. Of these the first 
was the settlement of Belize, now British Honduras, an an- 
cient logwood-cutting establishment with elastic boundaries. 
Englishmen also were living on the islands of the Bay of Hon- 
duras. Moreover, Great Britain had a protectorate, vague 
but of long standing, over the, considering the trouble they 
gave for forty years, appropriately named Mosquito Indians. 
Since these Indians were claimed as subjects by Nicaragua, 
the situation was similar to that which would have existed 
in the United States when Great Britain was intriguing with 
our Indians, had the United States been as weak as Nicar- 
agua was. The Indians professed to own the mouth of the 
St. Juan river, the first step in the overland journey; in 1848 
the British seized its port, Greytown, as Mosquito territory.^ 
Under these circumstances, Clayton began negotiations 
with Sir Henry Lytton Bulwer. Fearing a British p^rotest, 
Clayton- he failed to press treaties made without gov- 

Bulwer treaty ernmeut authorization by our representatives 
in Nicaragua and Honduras which promised us exclusive 
rights there, and considered himself fortunate to have the 
matter taken up on a basis of equality. On April 14, 1850, 
Clayton and Bulwer agreed to a treaty which provided that 
neither the United States nor Great Britain was to exercise 
any exclusive control over any canal that might be con- 
structed, that no fortifications should be erected to command 

• D. K. Pangborn, " A Journey from New York to San Francisco in 1850," 
Amer. Hist. Review, 190.3, ix. lOt-11.5. 

* I. D. Travis, History of the Clayton-Bulwer Treaty, Michigan Political 
Science Assoc., Publications, 1900, iii. No. 8. 



DIPLOMACY AND POLITICS, 1848-1861 293 

it, and that neither party should colonize or assume or exer- 
cise dominion over any part of Central America. The 
prospective canal was to be absolutely neutral, even in case of 
war between the two countries; and this neutrality was mu- 
tually guaranteed, other nations being invited to join in 
maintaining it. These general principles were also extended 
to all the other isthmuses of the region. 

The Clayton-Bulwer treaty was at once attacked as a viola- 
tion of the Monroe Doctrine. Buchanan declared that it 
established the doctrine against ourselves rather The Clayton- 
than against European governments. The and^the Mon- 
Democratic platform of 1856 said, "We can, roe Doctrine 
under no circumstances, surrender our preponderance in the 
adjustment of all questions arising out of [interoceanic com- 
munication]." Though it may well be doubted whether 
John Quincy Adams would thus have admitted Great Britain 
to equal partnership, it may be observed that the invidious- 
ness of this partnership might have been somewhat amel- 
iorated had other nations accepted the invitation to join in 
the guarantee. Adams's second and more practical objection 
to cooperating with Canning in 1823 had been that his own 
country wished to acquire territory and Canning's did not. 
In Clayton's case, the long-expressed intention of the United 
States was to acquire nothing which all the nations of the 
globe could not share with us, the free use of the isthmus 
and its improvement. Subsequently we changed our minds 
on this latter point, and the treaty became an obstacle. 

The fundamental question was, however, lost sight of 
through the irritating failure of Great Britain to live up to 
the spirit of the treaty. Clayton acknowledged, p ^ c tral- 
before ratification, that Belize should not be American ne- 
regarded as part of Central America, — a sensi- 
ble decision, as this was one of Great Britain's oldest Amer- 
ican settlements. This, however, did not content England, 
who continued to uphold and extend her interests in the 
region that was undoubtedly covered by the term Central 



294 



AMERICAN DIPLOMACY 



America. She continued to exercise her protectorate over 
the Mosquitoes and began to organize a government in the 
Bay Islands, In so doing she was not even justified by any 
deep-laid scheme of villainy, it was mere needless trouble- 
making. Her excuse, that the self-denying section of the 
treaty was prospective and not mandatory, could not bear 
examination in light of the text of the treaty, "assume or 




CENTRAL AMERICA 
1850 to 1860 

British Sphere of Influence "-g-*;-? 

Claimed by Nicaragua and 

Costa Rica 
Claimed by fvlexico and 

Guatemala 



ISTHMIAN CONTROVERSIES 



exercise dominion over." Webster and Everett handled the 
case over delicately, and Great Britain continued in posses- 
sion of what she claimed were her rights. Pierce sent Bu- 
chanan to England charged with the matter, but in the opin- 
ion of the latter the decision to treat Canadian questions 
separately at Washington rendered a settlement impossible. 
The incoming of Lord Palmerston as Prime Minister in 1855, 
brought an English administration prone to indulge in the 
art of bluff into opposition with an American administration 



DIPLOMACY AND POLITICS, 1848-1861 295 

with similar characteristics. The nervous feared war, though 
neither side intended to fight. The American bluff won, as 
has usually been the case in games of that character with the 
mother country. In 1856 Buchanan's successor, Dallas, ar- 
ranged with Lord Clarendon that Great Britain should with- 
draw her protectorate of the Mosquitoes and surrender her 
control of the Bay islands which were to become a practically 
independent state, though nominally under Honduras, and 
that the boundary of Belize should be definitely fixed. This 
convention was not formally accepted; but in 1860 Great 
Britain acted upon its terms, and Buchanan, in his annual 
message of the same year, announced his satisfaction.^ 

The Clayton-Bulwer treaty, lying between the United 
States and Great Britain, referred only to their joint policy 
toward any isthmian canal that might be con- ,^^^ extent of 
structed. Arrangements for construction, and our accom- 
for the protection of traffic before the canal 
was built, must be made with the several countries concerned. 
Under the protection of the Colombian treaty of 1846 a rail- 
road was built over the Panama route in 1856, an arrangement 
that proved reasonably satisfactory and drew the trade from 
Nicaragua. Since, upon investigation, the project of a canal 
seemed too immense an undertaking to be practicable, it was 
dropped, and diplomacy went little farther. A treaty was 
made with Nicaragua in 1856, but was not ratified. With 
Honduras, whose isthmus presented another possible thor- 
oughfare, none was made. Up to the Civil war, therefore, 
the achievements of diplomacy toward the solution of the 
problem of transcontinental transit consisted of the formu- 
lation of a policy, with the securing of the free use of Panama 
for our commerce and travel, of Tehuantepec for commerce, 
travel, and troops, and of a route for a railroad through the 
Gadsden Purchase. 

1 The best account of this episode is that in Anglo-American Isthmian 
Diplomacy, 1815-1914, by M. W. Williams, to be published by the Am. 
Hist. Assoc, as Winsor Prize Essay for 1914. 



296 AMERICAN DIPLOMACY 

It was not, however, upon these routine problems and 
these sohd accomplishments that public attention centred. 
Interest in ex- but upon what proved at the time to be the 
pansion will-o'-the-wisp of expansion. The first in- 

stance arose from the chaos of the Mexican war. On 
April 29, 1848, Polk informed Congress that the government 

of Yucatan, which claimed to be independent of 

Mexico, was in deadly peril from Indians and 
requested protection and annexation, that similar appeals 
had been sent to Great Britain and Spain. He declared that 
action by those powers would be inconsistent with the Mon- 
roe Doctrine, and that to prevent it we must ourselves assume 
the burden. Although nothing came of this proposition, for 
Mexico and Yucatan became reconciled, it is nevertheless 
of interest because Polk made use of it to add the first corol- 
lary to the Monroe Doctrine, — namely, our duty to occupy 
territory if necessary to prevent the introduction of the 
European political system, — and to enunciate the principle 
of the white man's burden.^ 

Equally futile were the not entirely haphazard attempts of 
William Walker, between 1855 and 1858, to secure control of 

Nicaragua and bring it into the United States. 

Again it is the comment of the President which 
renders the matter interesting. January 7, 1858, Buchanan 
announced to Congress: "It is beyond question the destiny 
of our race to spread themselves over the continent of North 
America, and this at no distant day should events be per- 
mitted to take their natural course. The tide of emigrants 
will flow to the south, and nothing can eventually arrest its 
progress. If permitted to go there peacefully. Central Amer- 
ica will soon contain an American population which will con- 
fer blessings and benefits as well upon the natives as their 
respective Governments . . . whilst the different transit 
routes across the Isthmus . . . will have assured protec- 

' Calhoun, Works, iv. 478-479; Eligio Anacona, Histoiia de Yucatan desde 
la epoca mas remota, iv. 15-170. 



DIPLOMACY AND POLITICS, 1848-1861 297 

tion. . . . Had one-half the number of American citizens 
who have miserably perished in the first disastrous expedi- 
tion of General Walker settled in Nicaragua as peaceful 
emigrants, the object which we all desire would ere this 
have been in a great degree accomplished." ^ 

Buchanan was not unaware that Mexico lay between the 
United States and Central America. In 1848 he had come to 
sympathize with the popular desire for all . 

Mexico. As President, he looked with distress 
upon her growing disorder, and despaired of her ability to 
govern herself. In 1859 he said, "She is now a wreck upon 
the ocean, drifting about as she is impelled by different fac- 
tions." Foreign vultures were awake. Our claims had again 
accumulated. He recommended that he be granted author- 
ity to take possession of "a sufficient portion of the remote 
and unsettled territory of Mexico, to be held in pledge." 
Congress, however, failed him. 

Marcy's treaty of annexation with Hawaii, in 1854, raised 

still another point, by tacitly including those islands within 

the sphere of influence of the American con- „ 

All 1-1 1 Hawau 

tinents. Although the treaty did not succeed, 

we continued to maintain the principle of a dominant in- 
fluence over the group. 

The chief treasure that we sought, however, was the pearl of 
the Antilles, Cuba. In 1848 it seemed to many that the period 
had arrived, predicted in Adams's instructions 
to Nelson in 1823, when the annexation of Cuba 
to our Federal republic had become "indispensable to the 
continuance and integrity of the union itself," when we could 
cease our constant ward of Spain's sovereignty and grasp 
the prize ourselves. The position of the island, though per- 
haps not, as was often asserted, essential to the navigation 
of the Mississippi, nevertheless strategically commanded 

» J. F. Rhodes, History of the United States (7 vols.. New York, 1893-1906), 
ii. 242, 288-290. A good account, as are his descriptions of other diplomatic 
episodes from 1850 to 1877. 



298 AMERICAN DIPLOMACY 

much of our commerce. The existence of slavery was an 
inducement to annexation sentiment in the South, and the 
fear of emancipation in Cuba by Enghsh influence affected 
thousands now as it had Calhoun in the case of Texas, This 
sectional interest, however, did more to weaken the influence 
of the nationalistic argument in the North than to strengthen 
the cause in the South. From 1848 the press teemed with 
articles on Cuba, till that island became more familiar to 
Americans than any other portion of Spanish-America ever 
has been, except itself again forty years later, and Mexico 
since the recent outbreak of revolution there. This news- 
paper interest rested on the diplomatic situation, and not 
on actual bonds between us and Cuba. Of tangible relation- 
ships the most important were trade and the fact that many 
Cubans sent their sons to be educated in the United States. 
The real reason for our change from a passive to an aggres- 
sive policy was within ourselves: we felt able to handle the 
question.^ 

During the next twelve years three methods of securing 
Cuba were conceived, — by purchase from Spain, by conquest 
from Spain, or by annexation after a real or a 
forced revolution. The effort to apply the last 
of these means was naturally the work of individuals. Fili- 
bustering became the fashion of the day, and engaged men 
of social and political standing. The Cuban leader was 
General Narcisco Lopez; among the Americans the fore- 
most was General Quitman, a dashing hero of the Mexican 
war. "Cuba once free," said the latter, "the regeneration 
of Mexico and of the distracted governments to the south 
of it would follow, and a new empire, the centre of the world's 
production and commerce, governed by the great principle 
of unrestricted free trade, would soon be established." Such 

• A bibliography of Cuba has been published (1898) by the Library of 
Congress, as is customary when such questions assume general importance. 
There are similar bibliographies on the Interoceanic Canal, Hawaii, Neutral- 
ity (1914), etc. The most nearly complete account of this period is J. M. 
Callahan, Cuba and International Relations, Baltimore, 1899. 



DIPLOMACY AND POLITICS, 1848-1861 299 

movements were widely heralded by the press, and in New 
Orleans and New York expeditions were openly fitted out. 
Spain was naturally alarmed. We assured her that our 
neutrality laws would be enforced, but to at least one of the 
invasions, that of 1849, our state department was pri\y. 
This attempt failed, as did that of 1850, in which many 
Americans were captured, whose fate held the country in 
suspense. They were eventually pardoned; but those cap- 
tured during the unsuccessful attempt of 1851 were shot in 
cold blood. Nevertheless in 1854 Lopez led a final band to 
their doom, and lost his own life. With him died for the time 
the attempt to revolutionize Cuba. 

Alarmed by these efiForts, in 1851 England and France 
ordered their navies to prevent the landing of unauthorized 
vessels in Cuba, and requested us to join in a Everett's dis- 
tripartite agreement to secure the island to P***^^ 
Spain. It was this request which gave Edward Everett his 
opportunity for a dispatch ringing with patriotism, in which 
he asserted the primacy of our interests, our determination 
that no foreign power should succeed Spain in possession 
of the island, and our intention to regulate our own conduct 
toward it as we thought fit. 

The failure of irregular attempts to secure it, coupled with 
the assertion of our interest in the island by a man who 
could certainly not be regarded as a pro-slavery advo- 
cate, turned attention, if it needed turning, to acquisition 
by more regular means. In 1848 Buchanan had offered to 
buy it from Spain. In 1852 it was proposed to link its an- 
nexation with that of Canada as a Democratic campaign is- 
sue; but the second half of this proposition was too risky, and 
without some sop to the North Cuba was not suited to ap- 
peal to a nation sectionalized as we were at that time. The 
proposal was therefore dropped and expansion was left out 
of the platform. 

This fact, however, did not prevent the new administration 
from taking it up. Buchanan advised Pierce to make Cuban 



300 AMERICAN DIPLOMACY 

annexation the distinctive measure of his administration, and 
wished, as secretary of state, to have the handling of it. 
Pierce, preferring to gain the glory himself, sent 
Buchanan to England, and, unfortunately for 
his purposes, chose Marcy as secretary. In his inaugural he 
announced his purpose. "The policy of my administration," 
he declared, "will not be controlled by any timid forebodings 
of evil from expansion. Indeed, it is not to be disguised that 
our attitude as a nation and our position on the globe render 
the acquisition of certain possessions not within our jurisdic- 
tion eminently important for our protection." 

In the spring of 1854 Pierce seemed likely to win Cuba 
by conquest. The Black Warrior, a United States merchant 
Black Warrior steamer engaged in the Cuban trade, was 
^^ seized by the Spanish customs officials for a 

trifling violation of some new port regulation. Marcy in- 
structed Soule, our minister in Spain, to demand three hun- 
dred thousand dollars damages. Meantime the island au- 
thorities withdrew from their position, restored the vessel, 
and returned to their former rules. Before this news, unas- 
sisted by cable, reached Spain, however, Soule had acted. 
Intent on bringing about war, he presented his demand as 
an ultimatum to be answered in forty-eight hours. His note, 
nicely calculated to arouse all the Spanish pride and obstinacy, 
produced its result, for the answer met the tone of the de- 
mand with an eloquent refusal. Straightway public opinion 
in the United States, just quieted from the episode itself, 
again took fire. General Quitman, now in the House of 
Representatives, moved that the neutrality laws be sus- 
pended and our fighting spirit let loose. Marcy, however, 
realizing that the situation did not warrant war, instructed 
Soule to take no further steps in the matter.^ 

It was decided to undertake the formulation of a com- 
plete program. Distrustful of Soule, Marcy wrote to him that 

' H. L. Janes, "The Black Warrior Affair," Amer. Hist. Review, 1907, 
xii. 280-298. 



DIPLOMACY AND POLITICS, 1848-1861 301 

the President thought that "weight and perhaps efficiency" 
would be gained if "two other of our most distinguished 
citizens" should be associated with him. Renewed ne- 
These two were James Buchanan, minister to gotia^ons 
Great Britain, and John Y. Mason, minister to France. A 
revolution in Spain seemed to offer an occasion, and in the 
Fall after the Black Warrior affair the three met at Ostend 
to formulate a policy. 

This took the form of the "Ostend Manifesto," a declara- 
tion setting forth that the position of Cuba made its acquisi- 
tion necessary to the United States. We Ostend Mani- 
should offer Spain one hundred and twenty ^®^*** 
millions for it. If she refused the offer, "it will then be time 
to consider the question, does Cuba in the possession of 
Spain seriously endanger our internal peace and the existence 
of our cherished union." This, it was urged, was actually 
the case, because emancipation was threatened by the over- 
whelming influence of Great Britain on Spain. The situation 
was similar to that which existed when emancipation was 
threatened in Texas, but it was more serious because of the 
number of the Cuban negroes; emancipation meant "African- 
ization," which would be a constant incentive to negro revolt 
in the United States. "Then, by every law, human and 
divine," concluded the manifesto, "we shall be justified in 
wresting it from Spain if we possess the power; and this upon 
the very same principle that would justify an individual in 
tearing down the burning house of his neighbor if there were 
no other means of preventing the flames from destroying his 
own home." It was another combination of the arguments 
of "manifest destiny" and international nuisance which 
were becoming so familiar to us. 

The force of these arguments was, however, counteracted 
in the United States by the development of the slavery 
struggle. Politicians and statesmen alike were divided be- 
tween the possibility of distracting public attention from in- 
ternal conflict by pointing the way to national glory, and the 



302 AMERICAN DIPLOI\L\CY 

fear that the sections would divide all the more quickly in 
fighting for the spoils. Spain refused to sell, the foreign min- 
Cuba and ister declaring that '* to part with Cuba would 

slavery j^g ^^ pg^^.^ with national honor." Yet Marcy 

would not follow the policy of the manifesto, and Congress 
during the next administration steadily refused to endorse 
Buchanan's earnest plans for action. 

An attempt was made to inject the subject into the cam- 
paign of 1860. Both branches of the Democracy declared 

. in favor of annexation, upon terms " honorable 
Expansion and . . 

the failure of to US and just to Spain." Although forced out 
compromise <• , i • i • • i , i 

oi the campaign discussions by other issues, 

it reappeared conspicuously between December, 1860, and 
March, 1861, in the deliberations over the question of com- 
promise. In fact, it was the universal belief that we were 
destined to absorb the country to the south of us, or at least 
that the question of such absorption would continue to be 
pressed, that created the final obstacle to compromise. The 
sections were able to agree upon the status of slavery in all 
our then existing territory, but not upon that in future 
annexations to the south. 

One dominant fact characterizes the period from 1844 
to 1860, — the national territory had expanded about fifty 
Territorial ex- per cent. The result was our possession of a 
pansion region consolidated and self-contained, so 

situated that we could never have a neighbor, unless with 
European connections, strong enough to cause us anxiety, 
and giving us outlet on both oceans. To this diplomacy 
had contributed but little. The people had expanded, diplo- 
macy was expected merely to justify and confirm their ac- 
tion. This it had done with decided success. Never before 
had our boundary been so unquestioned; only at the ex- 
treme northwestern corner was controversy still serious. 
In its attempt to extend our territory beyond the limits 
of actual expansion, however, diplomacy had signally 
failed. 



DIPLOMACY AND POLITICS, 1848-1861 303 

Commercially our efforts had been mainly devoted to 
securing equality of rights for the shipping of all nations on 
such pathways of commerce as were indis- Commercial 
pensable to world trade but yet fell territorially ^^^^ 
under the jurisdiction of some one power. In this field de- 
cided progress had been made, and even the question of 
isthmian transit seemed solved. The opening of Japan and 
the increased use of the Pacific had presented less difficulty, 
and our success had been even more marked and momentous. 

We had definitely refrained from using our strength to 
play a part in world politics. The question of our diplomatic 
quietude seemed to rest almost wholly with Prospect of 
ourselves. Unless we decided to press forward P®*<^® 
our territorial expansion beyond the limits which our citizens 
actually occupied, the only important question that remained 
was that of establishing the status of our naturalized citizens 
when abroad. When Lincoln came into office he found, as 
had Jefferson and Jackson, a sky which seemed to be almost 
clear of foreign complications. 



CHAPTER XXII 

THE CIVIL WAR ^ 

November 10, 1862, Lincoln wrote to Carl Schurz, "The 
administration . . . distributed to its party friends as nearly 

all the civil patronage as any administration 
diplomatic ever did." This was certainly no exaggeration 

of the break in the diplomatic service which 
the triumph of the Republican party brought about. Not 
only were those found in office Democrats, but a very large 
proportion were from the South; for Buchanan had aimed to 
give the slave states, not a proportional representation in 
the higher civil posts, but an equality. The almost complete 
change in personnel was less important than the change in 
weight and character. Until 1861 there had never been a 
time, except for brief periods under Jackson and Taylor, when 
some member of the administration had not been possessed 
of direct experience in foreign affairs. From 1861 until 
John Hay became secretary of state in 1898 the only mem- 
bers of any administration who had such experience were 
Carl Schurz under Hayes, and Levi P. Morton and J. W. 
Foster under Harrison. While there continued to be brilliant 
men and occasionally accomplished diplomats in foreign 
posts, it is obvious that they were not called upon to share in 
the outlining of our national foreign policy. It seems also 
a safe conclusion that the aggregate of ability employed in 

' For the history of the Civil war, historians are as nnich indebtecl to 
the late Charles Francis Adams, son of the minister to Creat Britain at 
that time, as they are to Henry Adams, another son, for the diplomacy of 
the Napoleonic period. His researches and conclusions, which liave ap- 
peared in many essays, will shortly he combined in his forthcoming life of 
his father. Rhodes's Uistory of the United States, vols, iii.-vii. is also strong 
on the diplomatic side. 

8M 



THE CIVIL WAR 305 

diplomacy, relative to that in other forms of politics, was 
not so great as previously. 

Of the men who took charge in 1861, Lincoln was not only 
without diplomatic experience, but without such knowledge of 
American international interests as most public 
men had previously possessed. Fortunately he 
knew it, and seldom intervened; when he did, it seems to have 
been in all cases beneficially. His profound understanding of 
human nature reached below diverging national characteris- 
tics and touched the common basis of humanity. In a crisis 
when public opinion so largely controlled the international 
situation, such an endowment was of inestimable value. ^ 

His secretary of state, William F. Seward, was one of the 
most complex personalities of his perplexing generation. With 
an absolute conviction of the ultimate triumph 
of what he believed to be right, he was perfectly 
ready to compromise principle for temporary convenience. 
Yet he was never content to let Providence work alone, but 
aided it with all the finesse of which his astute mind was 
capable. With a practicality thus genially founded in philos- 
ophy, he nevertheless at times surrendered himself to an 
intellectual emotionalism as dangerous to a man of his re- 
sponsibility as it is useful to the orator. The only such de- 
flection during his diplomatic career occurred at its very 
opening. Before assuming office he said, in an address to 
the New England Society of New York, that if we were at- 
tacked by a foreign power "all the hills of South Carolina 
would pour forth their population to the rescue." Becoming 
secretary, he advised, on April 1, 1861, the development of 
quarrels with Great Britain and France as a means of re- 
storing unity at home. Lincoln made no comment, but 
when, on May 21, he looked over the draft of Seward's dis- 

1 Abraham Lincoln, Complete Works, ed. J. G. Nicolay and John Hay, 
2 vols.. New York, 1894; Abraham Lincoln, a History, by Nicolay and Hay, 
10 vols.. New York, 1890; Gideon Welles, Lincoln and Seward, New York, 
1874. 



306 AMERICAN DIPLOMACY 

patch to our minister in England incorporating this policy, 
he took the sting out of it. He cut out a reference to "that 
hour" when we should "cease to be friends, and become once 
more, as we have twice before been forced to be, enemies of 
Great Britain"; in the description of her conduct he changed 
"wrongful" to "hurtful"; and he added, "This paper is for 
your own guidance only and not to be read or shown to any 
one." From this time Seward's handling of affairs was 
always competent and sometimes masterly, though he con- 
tinued to evince an even greater penchant for writing dip- 
lomatic notes to be read at home than had the secretaries 
of the fifties.^ 

The dispatch of May 21, thus modified by Lincoln, was 
further toned down by our minister, who wrote that he " tried 
to act up to [his] instructions at the same time 
that [he] softened as well as [he] could the sharp 
edges." The appointment of Charles Francis Adams to the 
court of St. James was as fortunate, in its lesser way, as the 
election of Lincoln to the presidency. Of a family, education, 
and manner to compel the respect of the English, he had, if 
not the genius of his father John Quincy Adams, at any rate 
high ability, all the family backbone and sturdy Americanism, 
and added thereto a somewhat greater tact. Treading a 
path where any slip was apt to lead to war, and where many 
of those with whom he associated hoped to see him slip, he 
maintained himself immune from criticism. His business was 
to see that nothing happened, and his career was marked by 
many important things that failed to happen. 

Confiding more and more in Adams abroad, Lincoln and 
Seward relied at home chiefly on Charles Sumner. With a 
_ background of foreign travel and a wide Eng- 

lish acquaintance, he became in 1861 chairman 
of the senate committee of foreign affairs, a post which he 
held till 1871. A scholar, with some knowledge of interna- 

^ Frederick Bancroft, The Life of William H. Seward (2 vols., New 
York, etc., 1900), vol. ii. 



THE CIVIL WAR 307 

tional law, and a cultured gentleman, he was a favorite with 
the foreign diplomats at Washington, who found him the most 
congenial of the men high in office. Throughout the war his 
advice seems to have been sound and useful.^ As important 
in routine matters as Sumner on critical occasions was Wil- 
liam Hunter, chief clerk of the state depart- 
ment. Holding office from 1829 to 1886, he °"°*" 
contributed a continuity of knowledge and practice the value 
of which it is hard to exaggerate. 

On April 12 this new administration found itself confronted 
by a condition of domestic hostility. On April 19, without 
intending to do so, it recognized that this hostil- 
ity constituted civil war. It was its purpose to 
treat the movement as a rebellion, a purely domestic affair. 
The first essential, however, was to cut oflF the hostile states 
from all connection with the outside world. Devoted to the 
raising of great staple crops, the South purchased many of 
its necessities instead of producing them; its commerce cut 
off, therefore, exhaustion would be but a matter of time. 
Secretary Welles thought that we could accomplish this end 
by declaring the ports closed; but, as we did not hold the 
ports, such a regulation would obviously have to be enforced 
at sea. Accordingly the cabinet decided upon a blockade, 
which Lincoln proclaimed April 19. In the leading case, 
that of the Amy Warwick, our own supreme court declared 
that this blockade could rest upon no other basis than that 
of a change of status in the South making it enemy's country, 
and hence that the government's act constituted a recogni- 
tion of belligerency or a state of war. Upon the maintenance 
of this blockade depended, so far as human judgment can 
tell, the success of the attempt to restore the Union by arms. 
Its effectiveness, as against the South, depended on the navy, 
as against foreign nations, upon diplomacy.^ 

1 Charles Sumner, Works (15 vols., Boston, 1875-83), vi. 153-242. 474- 
486; "Letters of Richard Cobden to Charles Sumner, 1862-1865," Amer. 
Hist. Review. li. 306-319. 

« Gideon Welles, Diary (3 vols., Boston, etc., 1911), i. 165, 172 ff. 



308 AMERICAN DIPLOIMACY 

The United States now found herself in the reverse of the 
situation that she had occupied during the Napoleonic wars: 
Maintenance she was now interested in the rights of bel- 
of blockade Ijgerents rather than in the rights of neutrals. 
This change of position did not lead to a change of policy, 
but to a change of stress. We now admitted, as we had pre- 
viously contended, that to be legal a blockade must be effec- 
tively maintained off the ports blockaded. Questions of 
course arose as to the definition of effective, but on the whole 
the navy relieved tlie dii)loniatic department of any great 
anxiety on this point. The blockade, at least after 1861, 
was reasonably efficient.^ 

Still, it was not proof against the alert blockade-runner 
willing to take the risk of capture. It became the custom to 
Continuous send goods to and from the Confederacy by 

voyage ^^^y q£ nearby neutral ports, as Nassau in the 

British Bahamas, a device that made the actual running of 
the blockade a short though perilous undertaking. A route 
still safer was that by way of Matamoros, a Mexican port 
just opposite Brownville in Texas, but communication from 
this distant border to the interior of the Confederacy was so 
poor, that the volume of such trade was small. To meet 
this situation our courts evolved a doctrine of "continuous 
voyage," asserting that, if the ultimate destination of the 
cargo was the Confederacy, the vessel carrying it might be 
seized even on a voyage between two neutral ports, as Liver- 
pool and Nassau. This doctrine somewhat resembled that 
applied by Sir William Scott, in the case of the Essex, to our 
trade between the French West Indies and France. Its ap- 
plication during the Civil war, however, was confined to the 
carrying of contraband. Numerous cases occurred in the 
Nassau trade, as those of the Dolphin and the Bermuda, which 
resulted in the condemnation of vessel and cargo. In the 
case of the Springbok the cargo was condenmcd, but the ship 

' H. L. Wait, "The Blockade of the Confederacy," Century, 1898, xxxiv. 
914-928. 



THE CIVIL WAR 309 

was released on the ground that there was no "fraudulent 
connection on the part of the owners with the ulterior des- 
tination of the goods." A leading case was that of the Peter- 
hof, seized on its way to Matamoros. The supreme court 
released the vessel on the plea that the blockade did not ap- 
ply to the inland trade from Mexico to the Confederacy; 
but as this decision was not rendered till 1866, it did not 
affect the conduct of the war. On the whole, the doctrine 
of "continuous voyage" was acknowledged by European 
powers and did something to assist in the maintenance 
of the blockade, though seizures under it were actually 
few. 

Our purpose now being to prevent commerce rather than 
to prey upon it, we had reason to regret our failure to adhere 
to the Declaration of Paris, which had abolished Declaration of 
privateering among its signers. While we, in ^"'^ 
this new crisis, made use of our merchant marine by pur- 
chasing vessels and incorporating them into the navy, Jef- 
ferson Davis, on his part, issued commissions to privateers. 
Seward, therefore, promptly announced that we would now 
adhere to all the rules of the Declaration, without amend- 
ment. France and England, however, while welcoming our 
adhesion, properly reminded us that these rules could not 
be held to apply to the Confederacy, whereupon Seward, 
failing in his purpose to have the Confederate privateers 
declared pirates, withdrew his offer to join in the agree- 
ment. 

On the important question of the belligerent right of 
search our position was developed with the progress of the 
war. On the other hand, we firmly insisted 
from the beginning on a rigid interpretation rights and 
of the duty of neutral nations to prevent their 
citizens from aiding our opponents. With regard to this 
duty, however, there was no such general concurrence of 
opinion as in the case of continuous voyages, and the issue 
was left to the course of diplomacy. 



310 AMERICAN DIPLOMACY 

As the main purpose of the national diplomacy was to pre- 
vent interference with the blockade, so that of the Con- 
Cotton as federate diplomacy was to break it up. The 

" king situation had long been regarded as possible, 

and the South faced it with confidence. In the twenties it 
had been argued that, in case of secession, the North would 
blockade the southern coast but that European demand for 
southern cotton would force the opening of the ports. Since 
then cotton had grown steadily more important to the in- 
dustrial life of Europe, till by 1861 few southerners doubted 
that cotton was "king." Their strength lay in the posses- 
sion of the monopoly of a necessity of life. Complementary 
to this club which would compel Europe to intervene was 
the inducement of free trade, which would win the active 
friendship of some great maritime power. On December 15, 
18G0, R. Barnwell Rhett, of whom the Times correspondent, 
William Russell, said, "Rhett is also persuaded that the 
lord chancellor sits on a cotton bale," sought an interview 
with the British consul at Charleston. He offered a recip- 
rocal freedom of trade as an inducement for an English 
alliance, and threatened that if Great Britain made difficul- 
ties the South would seek France.^ 

To make proper use of such weapons demanded a high 
degree of diplomatic skill. This the South did not evince. 
Jefferson Davis attempted more of an oversight of diplomacy 
than Lincoln did, and failed to show either Lincoln's patience 
or his good judgment. His secretaries, R. M. T. Hunter and 

^ J. D. Richardson, Messages and Papers of the Confederacy, 2 vols., 
Nashville, 1905; M. L. Bonham, The British Consuls in the Confederacy, 
Columbia University, Studies, xliii. No. 3; J. M. Callahan, The Diplomatic 
History of the Southern Confederacy, Baltimore, 1901, and his Northern Lake 
Frontier during the Civil War, Amcr. Hist. Assoc, Report, 189G, i. 335-359; 
J. D. Bulloch, The Secret Service of the Confederate States in Europe, 2 vols.. 
New York, 1884, and J. R. Thompson, Diary (accounts of Confederate 
naval agents in England); "Dispatch from the British Consul [Robert 
Bunch] at Charleston to Lord John Russell, [Dec. 15,] 1800," Amcr. Hist. 
Review, 1913, xviii. 783-787; J. R. Soley, The Blockade and the Cruisers, 
N. Y.. 1883. 



THE CIVIL WAR 311 

Judah P. Benjamin/ were both able men, but by no means 

of the first rank. James M. Mason made a good impression 

in England as Confederate commissioner there, 

but he annoyed her government by undue per- diplomatic 

sistence. John Slidell in France apparently 

did what was possible, but Paris was not the key to the 

situation as it had been when Franklin had served there. 

The accepted method of making diplomatic use of cotton 
was to prevent exportation in order to bring pressure to 
bear upon the industrial classes, and through them upon the 
governments of Great Britain and France. This policy, 
reminding one of Jefferson's embargo, may be said to have 
been enforced with rigor : during the four years of war about 
half a million bales only were exported, as against three 
million bales in 1861. This disparity, however, was due 
more to the Federal navy than to the Confederate govern- 
ernment, for during most of the war that government despite 
its policy was exporting all the cotton possible in order to 
purchase necessities. On the whole, however, one may say 
that the cotton argument was applied, and that if it did not 
succeed failure was owing to defect in the theory rather than 
in the detail of its application. 

While the main reliance of the South for relief from the 
blockade was upon foreign intervention, she hoped to use 
her cotton actively as well. In fact, Alexander Commerce 
H. Stephens held that all available cotton destroying 
should be purchased by the government, sent to Europe, 
held for scarcity prices, and the proceeds employed to build 
a fleet. Davis also wished a foreign built fleet, as a sub- 
sidiary weapon against the North and because of the weight 
he believed it would have with foreign nations. To circum- 
vent the neutrality laws of the great ship-building nation. 
Great Britain, by technicality, fraud, or favor, became the 
second great aim of the diplomatic force. The vessels thus 
to be secured were to be heavy fighting craft to break the 
^ Pierce Butler, Judah P. Benjamin, Philadelphia, [1907]. 



312 AMERICAN DIPLOMACY 

blockade and possibly to bombard northern ports, and fast 
steamers to harry United States commerce. The latter 
were to supplement the crowd of private ventures which 
Davis somewhat too optimistically hoped to call out by his 
offer to commission privateers. 

Desirous of worrying, yet not hopeful of destroying, United 
States commerce, Davis had to adopt a policy with reference 
. , to neutral rights. In so doing he decidedly 

toward neu- overplayed his hand. His great card was in 
offering immunity to neutral ships, at the same 
time making the hazard of capture to United States vessels 
high. This would drive United States trade into the hands 
of British vessels. On the strength of this favor he sought to 
adhere to the Declaration of Paris, except, however, as to 
the abolition of privateering. He would continue to use his 
privateers to endanger United States merchantmen, and 
yet would bind Europe to insist that our blockade either be 
impeccably effective or be raised. The first result that he 
aimed at, the transfer of our commerce from our own to 
British vessels, was largely attained. American merchant- 
men were forced to pay high insurance rates and charge 
high freights, in many cases their owners transferred them 
by actual or fraudulent sale to the British flag.^ Great 
Britain, however, did not show her gratitude. Insisting that 
an adhesion to the Declaration of Paris must be to the whole, 
she did not consider his offer, and the blockade remained. 
In 1863, obviously provoked, Davis threatened to change his 
regulations and allow the capture of enemies' goods in neu- 
tral vessels. In view of the fact that the commerce de- 
stroyers at his disposal were British-built, largely British- 
manned, and were subsisting in British ports, his threat to 
turn them loose on the British merchant marine overreached 
the limits of practical diplomacy. It was ignored, nor did 

* This question of transfer of ownership in time of war has been regulated 
since 1910 by the Declaration of London, at least in the case of nations 
signing that declaration, of which the United States is one. 



THE CIVIL WAR 313 

he act upon it. Had he done so, the Confederate warships 
would have been swept from the ocean. 

The field of contest for southern and northern diplomacy 
was practically confined to Great Britain, Of the European 
powers, Russia, Germany, Italy, and Den- Attitude of 
mark were friendly to the North, but the last ^"^"p® 
two were not substantially important. Germany bought 
northern bonds. Russia was moved not only by her tradi- 
tional desire to see the United States rival Great Britain as 
a maritime power, but by the sympathy which her humani- 
tarian czar, Alexander, the liberator of the serfs, felt for the 
efforts to abolish slavery. Her only active manifestation of 
friendship, however, lay in the visit of her fleets to this coun- 
try at what seemed to be a critical moment, September, 1863, 
— a visit undoubtedly as convenient to her as it was pleasing 
to us. In fact, the only nations whose policies were really 
interesting at this time were the maritime powers, France 
and Great Britain. 

Of these, France was distinctly anxious to secure the 

break-up of the Union. Louis Napoleon was nursing a new 

last plan for some kind of French colonial empire „ 

. . . .... , , . , 1 • . ^ French policy 

m America; division would assist his projects. 

He would have welcomed a chance to take part in the war on 
the side of the South, to renew that policy of liberating na- 
tions which, as pursued in Italy, had conferred a lustre on 
the Second Empire. He was, however, not in a position to 
disregard Great Britain with whom he was cooperating; for 
America was primarily a British problem.^ 

The leading political figure in England at the time was 
Lord Palmerston, the prime minister, well known, to use 
a word not then coined, as a jingo. He was English public 
distinctly favorable to the South, and was not °p""°° 
loath to interfere. His foreign secretary. Lord John Russell, 
was less decided in his sympathies and less inclined to action. 

* John Bigelow, Retrospections of an Active Life, 1817-79, 5 vols.. New 
York, 1909-13. Bigelow was consul-general at Paris. 



814 AMERICAN DIPLOMACY 

Both recognized the necessity of waiting upon pubHc opinion. 
This force, more potent in Great Britain than in any other 
country except the United States, and more complex there 
than with us, seemed at first overwhelmingly pro-southern. 
The Times, at the zenith of its prestige, if not of its power, 
was outspoken, and it represented the opinion of the governing 
class. The Earl of Malmesbury wTote, May 23, 

Official class , ^^ ..rr^i • 1 1 /-I P 1 

1862: Ihere is a rumor that the Confederates 
have been defeated and Beauregard taken prisoner, which 
everybody regrets. The feeling for the South is very strong 
in society." ^ This was due partly to an aristocratic elation 
at the failure of democracy and partly to sympathy with the 
apparently kindred culture of the plantation aristocracy of 
the South. Diplomatically the advantage to Great Britain 
of dealing with two republics in place of one was keenly ap- 
preciated. There was an almost universal feeling in England 
that the South could not be subdued. Edward A. Freeman, 
the historian, brought out, in 1863, a History of Federal 
Government from the Foundation of the Achaian League to the 
Disruption of the United States. It was obviously important 
to stand well with a new nation that possessed no qualms 
about using British manufactures, an argument just then 
pointed by the passage, in the national Congress, of the 
highly protective Morrill tariff. 

To the upholders of the great Whig tradition, which from 
Burke to Trevelyan has so emphatically championed our own 

„„ . . Revolution, the spectacle of the North attempt- 

whig element . i • i • ip i <-. i \ 

mg to bmd to itseli a reluctant South seemed a 

new contest of freedom against oppression. To them Lincoln 

stood in the place of George III. Many of this faction, to 

be sure, felt that individual freedom was more important 

than collective, and would have favored the North had its 

object been emancipation; but that object was expressly 

denied by Lincoln. 

^ Earl of Malmesbury, Memoirs of an Ex-minister (2d ed., 2 vols., London, 
1884), ii. 273, May 23, 18G2. 



THE CIVIL WAR 315 

The Dissenters, headed by John Bright, stood almost 
alone, at the beginning, in favor of the North. Strong forces, 
however, were working to prevent hasty ac- -j. 
tion. Bad harvests in 1860, 1861, and 1862 mercantile 
caused northern wheat to be more essential 
than southern cotton.^ The philosophic, moreover, saw a 
possible good in the cutting-off of the American supply of 
the latter commodity, since thereby production in other 
parts of the world might be stimulated and England thus be 
relieved of her dependence on whatever power possessed 
our black belt. The great mercantile class seemed to profit 
more by the continuance of war than it could hope to do by 
participation or by the triumph of either side. Inasmuch 
as British-built ships and British crews were already, under 
the Confederate flag, destroying the only rival merchant 
marine in existence, the risks of war were unnecessary. These 
non-sentimental arguments favored a passive policy. The 
balance of opinion thus created was dangerous, for, since 
the subject did not appeal to the average Englishman as 
one of such importance that it must be thought through to a 
decision, the result might depend upon the fortuitous stress 
of apparent accident. 

England's first act was to issue May 13, 1861, a neutrality 
proclamation recognizing that a state of war existed. This 
step certainly seemed to be called for by j. . , 
Davis's invitation to privateers and Lincoln's recognizes 
proclamation of blockade. It was evident 
that hostilities would take place at sea and neutrals be in- 
volved. Great Britain wished "to bring the management of 
it within the rules of modern civilized warfare." The proc- 
lamation is said to have been issued at the request of W. E. 
Foster, a member of the cabinet and a friend of the North. 
Although undoubtedly inevitable, its appearance was per- 
haps a little hasty, especially in view of the fact that it was 

^ E. D. Fite, Social and Industrial Conditions in the North during the Civil 
War (New York, 1910), 17-21. 



316 AMERICAN DIPLOMACY 

known that Adams was due to arrive within a day or two and 
would undoubtedly expect to be consulted. The news of 
England's recognition of belligerency came to the North 
like a slap in the face. Conscious of its own rectitude, north- 
ern opinion had not for a moment contemplated the possi- 
bility that Great Britain would not sympathize. The North 
had counted on the fact that we were fighting to free the 
slave as heavily as the South had counted on cotton. The 
leaders of opinion seemed to forget that their government 
had asserted that we were not fighting to free the slave. In- 
difference in England they could not understand. By a 
large portion of the North, Great Britain's assertion of neu- 
trality was as little credited as Washington's similar decla- 
ration in 1793 had been by France and England. Her recog- 
nition of belligerency, taken in connection with the tone of 
the British press, was believed to indicate an intention to 
assist the South. 

In this situation, on November 8, 1861, Captain Wilkes, 
commanding the San Jacinto, which he was bringing back into 

„ „ . home waters, heard that the Confederate com- 

Trent affair 

missioners. Mason and Slidell, were sailing from 

Havana to Europe on the British steamer Trent. Without or- 
ders, he "searched" the vessel, took off the commissioners, and 
brought them to Boston. The North went wild with an un- 
reasoning joy. But the mere capture of the two men could 
hardly have occasioned the lavish outburst of oratorical ex- 
uberance in which men ordinarily so sane as Edward Everett, 
R. H. Dana, and Governor Andrew indulged, even though 
southern statesmen were supposed to be possessed of some 
uncanny power of turning black into white. The rejoicing 
was rather due to the satisfaction of getting a return stroke 
against England for her belligerency j)roclamation. 

The British government had already considered the pos- 
sibility of some such exercise of the right of search. British 
precedent, coming from her practice during the conflict with 
Napoleon, was favorable to its broadest extension. Lord 



THE CIVIL WAR 317 

Palmerston had asked what could be done if an American war 
vessel stationed itself off Southampton to intercept all out- 
going shipping, and the law officers of the crown . 
could find no answer. Owing to the develop- 
ment of ocean transportation and the regularity of steam 
communication, the situation was very different from what 
it had been forty years before. It was, of course, palpably 
absurd to imagine any belligerent regularly stationing ves- 
sels to query every channel packet, but legally it seemed 
possible.^ 

When a specific case arose, however, it was obvious that 
the interference could not be tolerated. Entering the cabinet 
meeting. Lord Palmerston threw down his hat British de- 
and said, "I don't know whether you will "^^^^ 
stand it, but I'll be damned if I do." He hit the popular 
feeling; all England was ablaze with resentment. Parlia- 
ment took war measures, troops were ordered to Canada, 
and Lord Russell wrote a ringing demand for the surrender 
of the commissioners within seven days. There were those, 
however, who labored for peace, among them Prince Albert, 
who, when consulted by the queen, modified Russell's dis- 
patch, as Lincoln had Seward's. 

Fortunately, in the absence of a cable these national out- 
bursts were not simultaneous and could not quickly react 
on each other. By the time Russell's ultima- j^gig^g. ^f 
tum reached the United States, public opinion Mason and 
there had cooled by its own reflection and by 
the advice of men hke Sumner. The administration was 
anxious to get out of the scrape if it could do so without 
violating the national sense of honor. Appreciating the situ- 
ation, therefore, Lord Lyons, the British minister, presented 
Russell's note without reference to its being an ultimatum.^ 

1 T. L. Harris, The Trent Affair, Indianapolis, 1896; R. H. Dana, Trent 
Affair, in Wheaton's Elements of International Law, 8th ed., 1866, pp. 644 ff.; 
C. W. Battine, The Crisis of the Confederacy, London, 1905. 

* Lord [T. W. L.] Newton, Lord Lyons: a Record of British Diplomacy, 
1 vols., London, 1913 (this work, however, makes little use of Lyons's enor- 



318 AMERICAN DIPLOMACY 

On December 26, Seward replied that the capture of the 
Trent was justified by the fact that the commissioners were 
contraband of war engaged in a continuous voyage from the 
Confederate states; that Captain Wilkes, however, had failed 
to conform to international law in allowing the Trent to 
proceed and thus preventing a judicial review of his action; 
and consequently that the United States would surrender 
Mason and Slidell. In this affair, Seward, or public opinion 
coercing Seward, perhaps lost to the United States an op- 
portunity for securing British assent to our nation-old chal- 
Result of the lenge of the indiscriminate extension of the 
Trent affair belligerent right of search. The prompt sur- 
render of the commissioners on the ground that Captain 
Wilkes had exceeded his belligerent powers would while 
conciliating British opinion, at the same time have obtained 
a national triumph. Yet the actual result was satisfactory 
in that it prevented war if it did not restore good feeling. 
James Russell Lowell put in the mouth of Jefferson Davis 
the words: 

*"T wuz a beautiful dream, an' all sorrer is idle, — 
But r/ Lincoln would ha' hanged Mason an' Slidell! 
They ain't o' no good in European pellices. 
But think wut a help they'd ha' ben on their gallowses! 
They'd ha' felt they wuz truly fulfillin' their mission. 
An', oh, how dog-cheap we'd ha' gut Reecognition ! " 

This episode over, the British government had an op- 
portunity to deliberate on its policy. Its next step, if it 
Significance of Were to take one, would be recognition of the 
of i^ndepend°'^ independence of the southern Confederacy. 
®°^® Such recognition need not involve hostilities 

with us. It would give the Confederacy prestige, which 
doubtless could be cashed in the form of a loan; but, if Great 
Britain accompanied her recognition with an assurance of 
neutrality, as she doubtless would, it would give the South 

mou3 correspondence within the ITnited States); Edmund Fitzmaurice, 
The^ Life of . . . Second Earl Granville, 1815-91 (3d ed., 2 vols., London, 
1905), vol. i. 



THE CIVIL WAR 319 

no belligerent rights that it did not already possess. When 
France acknowledged our independence in 1778, Great Brit- 
ain considered the act cause for war; but when we first, and 
after us Great Britain, recognized the independence of the 
Spanish-American states, Spain did not consider it cause for 
war. The difiference lay partly in the fact that Spain had 
less chance to recover her colonies than Great Britain had, 
and partly in the relative standing of the nations. In the 
present case, the United States was not prepared to acknowl- 
edge that she had no hope of recovering the South. 

Recognition of the Confederacy by Great Britain must 
almost inevitably have been met by war on our part. Public 
sentiment, already bitter, was during 1862 England's at- 
constantly exasperated by the disastrous ac- *'*"<i® awaited 
tivity of the Confederate cruisers built in Great Britain with 
what we considered the connivance of that government. 
The floating of a Confederate loan in the spring of 1863 was 
regarded as still further evidence of malintent. After the 
battle of the Monitor and Merrimac we began to be over- 
confident of our naval strength; even Secretary Welles con- 
sidered himself ready for the British navy.^ No small por- 
tion of the press carried a chip on its shoulder. Regardless 
of the exigencies of the military task already before us, a 
controlling fraction of the North undoubtedly felt, as the 
West had felt in 1812, that, if it was obvious that we had 
to fight Great Britain, we might as well do so openly; — that 
her recognition of the Confederacy would be the throwing 
down of the glove. The ingrained hatred of European 
interference was perhaps still more fundamental. Seward 
instructed Adams to suspend his diplomatic functions in the 
event of an announcement of recognition. 

With the British government it was a question of time 

and circumstance. In November, 1861, Adams had told 

Palmerston that the North would probably not try to coerce 

a hostile population, that it merely wished to give the latent 

^ Welles, Diary, i. 495. 



320 AMERICAN DIPLOMACY 

Union sentiment in the South opportunity to develop. 
The defeat of McClellan before Richmond in July, 1862, 
Cabinet pro- seemed to show that this attempt had failed. 
^^"'^ September 14, Palmerston wrote to Russell 

favoring recognition. Russell replied with the suggestion 
that mediation be offered first, and that a cabinet meet- 
ing be held September 23 or September 30 to discuss the 
matter. Lord Granville, who was absent with the queen, 
proposed further delay, and a meeting was finally arranged 
for October. Russell set to work on the preparation of a 
memoir to present the case for mediation and subsequent 
recognition. 

In the interval W. E. Gladstone, chancellor of the ex- 
chequer, the coming man but many years junior to Palmerston 
and Russell, touched on the subject at Newcas- 
tle. "There can be no doubt," said he, "that 
Jefferson Davis and other leaders of the South have made an 
army; they are making, it appears, a navy, and they have 
made what is more than either, they have made a nation." 
His position was promptly attacked by a fellow cabinet mem- 
ber, Sir George Cornwallis Lewis. For cabinet members in 
Great Britain thus to commit themselves on subjects which 
have not yet been decided by the cabinet as a whole, and 
thus to differ, is not unknown, but it is always indiscreet. 
As a result it was decided that recognition could wait awhile, 
long enough to allow the party chiefs to assert themselves and 
to discipline Gladstone. The matter was dropped for the time. 

The cabinet therefore met Parliament, February 5, 1863, 
without a declared policy. Interest thereupon centred in 
Parliamentary an attempt to force its hand through Parlia- 
discussion ment. A member, Mr. Roebuck, had an inter- 

view with Napoleon, who urged him to press the matter. 
On June 30 he introduced a motion instructing the govern- 
ment "to enter into negotiation with the great powers of 
Europe for the purpose of obtaining their cooperation in 
the recognition " of the Confederacy. 



THE CIVIL WAR 321 

This seeming climax, however, is deceptive; the real crisis 
had passed. The final argument had always been in the 
hands of the North, and had by this time been Emancipation 
made effective. Great Britain could not take Proclamation 
action perpetuating slavery. Universal emancipation out- 
weighed cotton. With the advantage of its sentimental ap- 
peal, this consideration was equally strong from a practical 
standpoint. Between 1854 and 1860 the northern working- 
man had been brought over from a passive to an actual op- 
position to slavery, by insistence on the economic disadvan- 
tage to free laborers of competition by labor-owners. The 
British laboring-man had gone through his education earlier, 
with such effect that the very population most severely hit 
by the cotton famine, the operatives of the Lancaster mills, 
had nevertheless steadily stood by the North. Supported 
through their distress by the splendid organization of British 
philanthropy, they found their situation begin to improve 
with the coming of Indian and Egyptian cotton in 1863; ^ 
and if they had any doubt as to the purpose of the North it 
was absolved by Lincoln's preliminary emancipation proc- 
lamation of September 22, 1862. 

Whether this proclamation had anything to do with the 
postponement of the critical cabinet meeting it is impossible 
to say, but it is noticeable that the news of it Effect of 
reached England between the calling of the emancipation 
meeting and its postponement. Between that time and 
June, actual emancipation was proclaimed, January 1, 1863. 
Lincoln did not allow the effect of the proclamation to be 
lost upon English opinion. Throughout the war he and 
Seward were continually sending abroad all kinds of informal 
representatives upon all sorts of missions. The influence of 
John Bigelow on the French press, and of Thurlow Weed 
on the English, was probably not great, and many of these 
roving emissaries caused as much annoyance to Adams as 
their counterparts had given to Franklin during the Revolu- 
^ R. A. Arnold, History of the Cotton Famine, London, 1864. 



322 AJVIERICAN DIPLOIVIACY 

tion. Henry Ward Beecher, however, was a real ambassador 
to the people, and Lincoln himself wrote a public letter to the 
working-men of London. On the whole, the development of 
a pro-northern sentiment was rather by a raising of interest 
in the indifferent or the uninformed than by a converting 
of the pro-southern classes, although the Whig element began 
to turn. Many moderates moreover, were decidedly in- 
fluenced by the northern victories of Gettysburg and Vicks- 
burg, July 3 and 4, 1863. It was, however, on July 13, three 
days before the news of these victories reached England that 
Roebuck, realizing the change in the balance of opinion, 
withdrew his motion. It was Lincoln, not Grant and Meade, 
who prevented recognition. 

Even with the crisis past, there still remained a twofold 
danger. With the proceeds of their loan the Confederates 
The Laird were having built by Laird, the great British 

•rams iron-master, war vessels, rams of such formid- 

able fighting capacity that they caused the sensitive quills 
of our press to stand erect with horror as they saw them, 
omnipresent, destroying our poor blockading fleet, laying 
the Atlantic coast under tribute, and ascending our rivers 
and creeks for the devastation of the interior. There was 
more chance, however, that some episode would arise out of 
their building that would tip the still swaying balance of 
British opinion, or would impress that of the United States 
as an act of war. Adams, with growing confidence, pressed 
upon Russell the duty of preventing these vessels, whose 
progress was regularly reported in the newspapers, from 
being delivered into the hands of the Confederacy. Russell 
promised to investigate, but his law officers discovered that 
the vessels had been sold to a French firm, and that there 
was no "evidence capable of being presented to a Court of 
Justice" that they were intended for the Confederacy. Ac- 
tually they did not know that a contract existed by which 
the French firm was to turn them over to Confederate agents 
when they were once beyond British jurisdiction. Adams, 



THE CIVIL WAR 323 

however, rightly beheved that this was the case. On Sep- 
tember 5, therefore, hearing that one ship was about to de- 
part, he wrote to Russell: "I can regard it no otherwise than 
as practically opening to the insurgents full liberty in this 
Kingdom, to conduct a campaign against the northern sea- 
ports. ... It would be superfluous in me to point out to 
your Lordship that this is war." Russell had no intention 
thus to provoke war. Two days before Adams's letter was 
written he had ordered the rams detained. This closed the 
episode; the rams never afterwards were within reach of the 
Confederacy. 

With September, 1863, the triumph of northern diplomacy 
was complete. Davis's next message to the Confederate 
Congress is a petulant admission of defeat. Triumph of 
Nevertheless, the Confederacy did not give up *^® ^otih 
its hope of foreign aid or its attempt to secure it. Alexander 
H. Stephens even favored abolishing slavery to win it.^ All 
subsequent plans, policies, and projects, however, were ac- 
tually dependent upon military success, which could not 
come on any grand scale without foreign aid, without the 
breaking of the blockade. The situation was an impasse. 
Chance might work for the Confederacy, but no diplomatic 
skill would avail for rescue. 

^ See also M. D. Conway, Autobiography (2 vols., Boston, etc., 1904), 
ch. xzi. 



CHAPTER XXIII 

THE CIVIL WAR AND THE MONROE DOCTRINE 

From the date of President Monroe's message of 1823 to 

the Civil war there had been no new European colony estab- 

T> .• 1 « X lished in America, no transfer of territory from 
Practical efifect . '' 

of the Monroe one European nation to another, and no con- 
trolling intervention by European powers in 
American affairs. This inactivity had not been due to any 
unwillingness to interfere, or even to a lack of desire, but to 
a recognition of the fact that owing to its position, the United 
States was actually stronger over most of the continental 
area than any European power could be, and that her friend- 
ship was more valuable than the spoils that might be snatched 
in a general scramble for plunder. 

In answering questions as to the national policy asked by 
the governments of Argentina and Brazil in 1825, Clay had 

. ^ ^ ^. been careful to state that "our declaration 
Interpretation 

of the Monroe must be regarded as having been voluntarily 
Doctrine i i . • i i 

made, and not as conveymg any pledge or 

obligation the performance of which foreign nations have a 

right to demand." Until the Mexican war our policy was 

negative, and we avoided entanglements in the ever-changing 

complications of Spanish-American politics. This left a 

field open for the exercise of European influence, and by 

mediation and advice European governments sought to 

gain a hold without actually coming into collision with us. 

In 1827, for instance, Austria and Great Britain sought to 

arrange peace between Brazil and Portugal, and Great Britain 

did actively intervene. After 1845, our ministers are often 

found taking a mediating part in South American disputes, 

3U 



CIVIL WAR AND MONROE DOCTRINE 325 

but without any strong insistence in our exclusive right to 

tender such good oflSces. 

The centre of European interest was the mouth of La 

Plata, the bone of contention between Argentina, Brazil, 

and Uruguay. In the latter country French ^ ,. . ^ 
. n , „ French rnflu- 

innuence was strong, and irom 1838 to 1849 ence in Uru- 

was constantly on the alert. This foothold ^^^ 
was seized upon with vigor by the second French republic 
in 1848, and Eugene Guillemot was sent to represent her. 
He reported, December 12, 1848, "Two opposed elements 
contend at present in all South America, the local element 
and the European. . . . Around the first group all the 
tendencies, stationary and retrograde . . . ; around the other, 
colonization, expansion, in all good senses, agricultural, in- 
dustrial, and commercial. But let the local element prevail, 
and a new element, influence, and perhaps control, the 
Anglo-American, will not be long in appearing in the midst 
of the social torpor, if not anarchy, and will produce a 
complete and without doubt violent renovation, and more 
or less our exclusion as well as that of Europe." 

March 19, 1849, Guillemot advised that France send six 
thousand troops to Montevideo: "It is not a conquest that 
France will make for herself, it will be only a Second Re- 
vast rendezvous of emigration for the use of momoc" Doc- 
Europe that she will open. . . . South Amer- *^® 
ica is occupied nearly entirely by natives of Iberian descent. 
A fruitful germ of our nation ought to be deposited among 
them, and if some day the Anglo-Americans pretend to pass 
over Panama and descend towards Cape Horn, it is well 
that they find at least on the route a people of our race, not 
less hardy than theirs, which may serve to head the column 
of the others." He was not unmindful of the Monroe Doc- 
trine, just then being insisted upon by Polk; but he put too 
much stress upon its temporary, humanistic element of 
opposition to monarchy, and too little on the fundamental 
opposition to European influence. April 10, 1849, he wrote. 



326 AMERICAN DIPLOMACY 

"Let France declare her disinterested views in the matter, 
and the Americans of the North will find nothing to say, 
especially as republican France has rights other than those 
of monarchical France, they know it and they say it." No 
permanent establishment of French power or population 
came from this program; but its formulation at a period 
when the French people, released from administrative con- 
trol, found opportunity to express their national enthusiasms, 
shows that the vision of an American empire had not died.^ 

The division of the United States in 1861, and the conse- 
quent paralysis of her forces, therefore released European 
Seward's ad- ambitions and projects which her power had 
justable poUcy repressed. The first country to take ad- 
vantage of the new situation was Spain. In 1861 either 
Spain or the Spanish authorities in Cuba managed by some 
method to receive from the Dominican Republic, the eastern 
and formerly Spanish portion of the island of Santo Domingo, 
a request for annexation. This voluntary reincorporation 
of a former colony raised a delicate question with reference 
to the interpretation of the Monroe Doctrine; and the dif- 
ficulty was increased by the fact that, owing to southern 
opposition to the recognition of a negro republic, we had 
never been on terms of diplomatic intercourse with the island 
government which thus determined on suicide, although we 
had maintained a consul there for most of the period since 
1800. Nevertheless, Seward hesitated not a moment as 
to the applicability of our traditional policy. April 2, 1861, 
he wrote to the Spanish minister at Washington that, should 
Spain sustain this action, the President would "be obliged 
to regard" her "as manifesting an unfriendly spirit towards 
the United States, and to meet the further prosecution of 
enterprises of that kind in regard to cither the Dominican 
Republic or any part of the American continent or islands 

' Eugene Guillomot, La politique et Vavenir de la France dans V Amerique 
du Sud: also British Public Record OflBce, Foreign Office Records, Buenot 
Ayres. 1846. 



CIVIL WAR AND IMONROE DOCTRINE 327 

with a prompt, persistent, and, if possible, effective resist- 
ance." Spain disregarded the threat, and on July 1, 1861, 
the Spanish minister announced to Seward the annexation 
of Dominica. Carl Schurz, our new minister in Spain, 
asked for instructions, and in August, 1861, Seward wrote 
to him that circumstances prevented him from giving a def- 
inite answer. This change of tone needed no explanation, 
but it illustrates the influence of the Civil war on the Monroe 
Doctrine. In refraining from answering Schurz's question, 
Seward alike saved himself from offending Spain when he 
had not the power to awe or oppose her, and left open the 
door for future protest. Meanwhile, by an indirection of 
statement, he attempted to lead Spain to suppose that this 
tolerance of a situation which we had so often declared in- 
tolerable, was due to her "observance of the blockade and 
the closing of Spanish ports to the insurgent privateers." 
The supreme test of our passivity came when, in 1863, war 
broke out between the Spanish government and the islanders. 
Seward promptly declared our neutrality.^ 

Although Spain was interested in this undertaking to the 
extent of sending more than thirty thousand troops to the 
island, the task of maintaining her local hold, Spain leaves 
in spite of the neutrality of the United States, Dominica 
was so exhausting that in 1865 she voluntarily surrendered 
her claim. Spain's reoccupation of Dominica seems to have 
been part of a general, though vacillating, purpose on her 
part to take advantage of our weakness in order to inaugurate 
an active American policy. In 1864 she went Spain and 
to war with Peru, and some of her representa- ^^^ 
tives claimed that, as she had never recognized Peru's inde- 
pendence, she might without violation of any established 
sovereignty recover the Chincha islands. Seward, more at 
ease than in 1861, ordered our minister at Madrid, now 
G. Koerner, to make known to the Spanish government that 

1 Carl Schurz, Speeches, Correspondence, and Political Papers (6 vols. 
New York, etc., 1913), i. 185-205. 



328 AMERICAN DIPLOMACY 

we could not accept such an argument or "regard with in- 
difference" an attempt at re-annexation. The Spanish gov- 
ernment disclaimed any idea of encroachment, but occupied 
the islands, and in 1866 announced that it might take posses- 
sion of them without any intention of acquiring territory, but 
merely to reimburse itself for the expense of the war by the 
sale of guano. It was now too late. Our new minister in 
Spain, J. P. Hale, was instructed that, in case of even such 
a temporary occupation, the United States could not be 
expected "to remain in their present attitude of neutrality." 
The Civil war was over, and Spain withdrew. 

The same successive adjustment of our policy to circum- 
stance that has been observed in the case of Spain is to be 

. ^ found in the more important issue of the ac- 

Second Em- . . • T»/r • mi i 

pire and tivity of France m Mexico. The latter coun- 

try was the scene of constant revolution and 
guerrilla warfare. The claims of United States citizens that 
in Buchanan's administration had seemed to him to warrant 
our interference were paralleled by those of the citizens of 
all other foreign nations doing business there, particularly 
those of Great Britain, France and Spain. These nations 
were in 1800 moving toward interposition, and Buchanan, 
in his message of December 3, 1860, regretted that we had 
not taken action earlier. "We should thus," he said, "have 
been relieved from the obligation of resisting, even by force 
should this become necessary, any attempt by these Govern- 
ments to deprive our neighboring Republic of portions of her 
territory — a duty from which we could not shrink without 
abandoning the traditional and established policy of the 
American people." 

In 1861 the Mexican Congress voted to defer the payment 
of interest on foreign bonds; whereupon Great Britain, 
Convention of France, and Spain decided that action must be 
London taken. They invited the United States to join 

them, but she refused. In a convention signed at London, 
October 31, 1861, they decided forcibly to demand "more ef- 



CIVIL WAR AND MONROE DOCTRINE 329 

ficacious protection for the persons and the properties of their 
subjects, as well as the fulfillment of obligations." The high 
contracting parties engaged "not to seek for themselves . . . 
any acquisition of territory ... or any special advantage, 
and not to exercise in the internal affairs of Mexico any influ- 
ence of a nature to prejudice the right of the Mexican nation 
to choose and to constitute freely the form of its govern- 
ment." Nevertheless, Schurz wrote to Seward, November 16, 
1861, of the intriguing rivalries for the throne of Mexico. 
The importance of the movement of the allies was indicated 
by the choice of General Prim, the leading man in Spain, to 
head it. He assured Schurz, before embarking, of his sym- 
pathy with the United States. 

Once in Mexico, the allies occupied a number of customs- 
houses and collected the duties, but in April, 1862, Spain and 
England made an arrangement with the gov- j.^ . 
ernment and withdrew.^ France was left. French ques- 
This was the opportunity for which Napoleon 
had been working. His basis for interference was not so 
much the French claims, which consisted chiefly of bonds 
with a face value of fifteen million dollars, purchased by the 
firm of Jecker for seven hundred and fifty thousand from an 
ephemeral revolutionary government, as the hope that the 
Second Empire might, by carrying out the French national 
aspirations, successfully fulfill the colonial vision of the 
First. Morny, Napoleon's relative and confidential adviser, 
believed that the United States was a menace to Europe, and 
wished to create in Mexico an empire that would become 
the protector of all the Latin republics and with them con- 
stitute a power capable of resisting us. 

With such views in mind, Napoleon, on the withdrawal of 
the other powers, presented an ultimatum and ordered his 
army on to the city of Mexico. Finding no stable govern- 
ment with which to treat, the French commander called an 

* H. L^ondaron, "L'Espagne et la question du Mexique, 1861-1862," 
Annales des Sciences Politiques, 1901, xvi. 59-95. 



330 AMERICAN DIPLOMACY 

, assembly of Mexican notables to deal with the situation. 

Amid the confusion of local factions and personal rivalries 

^ that divided the land there ran one main 
Formation of . 

the Mexican line of division, — that between the Church 
empire party and the Liberal party. The latter, under 

Juarez, was in the field fighting the French; the other Na- 
poleon hoped to use as the local basis for French influence. 
His notables were chosen with that end in view, and they 
proved docile to his leading. Under his tutelage they de- 
cided that an empire on the Napoleonic plan afforded the 
best basis for security, and asked the Archduke Maximilian 
of Austria, to rule over them. Napoleon calculated on estab- 
lishing in America an empire that would be strong and yet 
dependent upon his support, and on gaining in Europe the 
gratitude of the pope and of Austria.^ 

The situation thus presented to us was, both technically 
and practically, more difficult than that produced by Spain 
Danger of our iw Dominica. Technically it was so because 
situation ^jjjg ^,^g j^Qj. ^ question of annexation, but 

prima facie an exhibition of popular sovereignty. Napoleon's 
was plainly the guiding hand, yet to the eye the marionette 
notables moved of their own volition. Practically it was 
more dangerous because of the greater strength of France. 
Spain was simply no longer afraid of us, of France we our- 
selves were fearful. We could not acquiesce in such a way as 
to find our hands tied after the war was over; on the other 
hand, if we protested too vigorously we should not only be 
making useless threats, but might give Napoleon an excuse 
for breaking from England's lead and interfering in our Civil 
war. On February 3, 18G3, he offered to act as mediator 
between the North and South, and, when the North firmly 
rejected that offer, it was only England's influence that pre- 
vented his recognition of the Confederacy. Napoleon and the 
Confederacy mutually cultivated each other; Slidell was con- 

^ Lellre d M. Durhon Doris; Bordeiiux, 1864; "Mme. Adam's Reminis- 
cencea," Nation, 1905, Ixxxi. 521-5W, 



CIVIL WAR AND MONROE DOCTRINE 331 

cerned in the Napoleonic attempt to influence the British 
Parliament through Roebuck; Benjamin attempted to bribe 
Napoleon by a million bales of cotton. Almost to the day 
of Lee's surrender the hope of Napoleon's intervention per- 
sisted in the South. Of Seward's first dispatch on the 
subject, in which he assured France of our neu- Seward and 
trality in her war with Mexico, and with refer- Napoleon 
ence to the new empire said that it would be neither easily 
established nor useful, his friend Weed wrote to him: "Your 
dispatch on Mexican matters breaks no eggs. It makes a 
record, and there, I hope, you are at rest." Napoleon, on 
hearing that Seward's dispatch had arrived, eagerly asked if 
there had been a protest. Rather annoyed than relieved 
by its mild indefiniteness, he asked that we follow the ex- 
ample of the powers of Europe except Russia, by recognizing 
Maximilian as emperor. Seward replied that he understood 
there was still opposition to the Austrian, and that he should 
prefer to err on the side of neutrality. 

Seward's policy of avoiding offence to France and yet of 
leaving the future unpledged, was undoubtedly wise, but 
in pursuing it he was forced to deal not only Seward and 
with Napoleon but with our own newspapers Congress 
and with Congress. In April, 1864, the House of Representa- 
tives unanimously resolved that it could not accord with 
United States policy to acknowledge a monarchical govern- 
ment established under the auspices of any European power 
on the ruins of an American Republic. The French foreign 
minister, Drouyn de I'Huys, learning of the resolution, 
greeted our minister, Dayton, with the question, "Do you 
bring us peace or bring us war?" He brought Seward's 
explanation that the foreign policy of our country was di- 
rected by the President. 

The close of our war left us masters of the situation; but 
the task of getting rid of Maximilian was a delicate one, 
for there was the chance that our aroused and militant pub- 
lic sentiment would force Napoleon into war to defend his 



332 AMERICAN DIPLOMACY 

prestige. General Grant looked on the whole movement as 
a "direct act of war," and it was proposed that an army 
Seward and of our volunteers, Union and Confederate, be 
the army reenlisted across the Mexican border to serve 

under Juarez in driving out the French. General Schofield 
was detached for twelve months to head this organiza- 
tion. 

Seward met this dangerous proposition by finesse. He 
called Schofield to him and asked him to go to France in- 
Seward aDows stead. "I want you to get your legs under 
diplomatic * Napoleon's mahogany," said he, "and tell him 
victory lie must get out of Mexico." Schofield did 

not happen to dine with Napoleon, but Seward informed 
France that peace would be put in "imminent jeopardy" 
by the further retention of French troops in Mexico. Realiz- 
ing, however, that Napoleon, by reason of the domestic sit- 
uation in France, could face war more easily than a confessed 
defeat, Seward gave him a seeming victory by assuring him, 
February 12, 1866, that after the French evacuation the 
United States would continue the same neutrality between 
Juarez and Maximilian that she had previously preserved 
between Juarez and the French. This recognition constituted 
a triumph of French diplomacy, though a triumph that every 
one knew was hollow, for Maximilian could not stand a year 
unsupported by France. Accepting this way out, so wisely 
prepared for him, de I'Huys replied. " We receive this as- 
surance with entire confidence and we find therein a sufficient 
guarantee not any longer to delay the adoption of measures 
intended to prepare for the return of our army." ^ 

Hearing of the probable abandonment of Maximilian by 
the French, his countrymen of Austria prepared to enlist 
an army for his defence. Seward promptly directed John 

* C. A. Duniway, Reasons for the Withdrawal of the French from Mexico, 
Amer. Hist. Assoc, Report, 1902, i. 312-328; Latane, Diplomatic Relations of 
the Ignited States and Spanish America, 221-265; Henry Wheaton, Elements 
of International Law, 8th edition by R. H. Dana, London, etc., 1866. 



CIVIL WAR AND MONROE DOCTRINE 333 

Lothrop Motley, our minister at Vienna, to challenge such 
an attempt peremptorily. Motley, the least satisfactory of 
our literary appointments, raised many diffi- seward and 
culties in carrying out this policy, among others Austria 
that it did not harmonize with the earlier tone which we 
had adopted. Seward replied, "I refrain from discussing 
the question you have raised, whether the recent instruc- 
tions of this department harmonize entirely with the policy 
which it pursued at an earlier period of the European in- 
tervention in Mexico." Europe understood, if Motley did 
not, that the close of our war had changed the situation. 
Austria promised to prevent the departure of the volun- 
teers. 

The American residuum of European interference soon 
vanished with the withdrawal of the support which had 
brought it into being. Maximilian's native Fate of Maxi- 
Mexican forces yielded to those of Juarez, and °""*^ 
he himself was captured. Upon learning that he was con- 
demned to be shot in the back as a traitor, Austria, France, 
and Great Britain appealed to the United States to save 
him. We expressed sympathy and recommended clemency 
to Juarez, but we would not intervene in a matter domes- 
tically Mexican. Maximilian was shot. The Monroe Doc- 
trine was once more established, and more firmly established 
than it was in 1860, for it had practically been recognized 
by France, Spain, and Austria. The Austrian court, however, 
has never since been an altogether pleasant residence for 
an American minister. 

That Great Britain does not appear in this crisis of the 
Monroe Doctrine seems strange to many critics. Bernhardi 
wrote in 1901: "Since England committed the _ t B t ' 
unpardonable blunder, from her point of view, and the Mon- 
of not supporting the Southern States in the 
American war of Secession, a rival to England's world-wide 
empire has appeared ... in the form of the United States 
of North America." In part this apparent neglect of oppor- 



334 AMERICAN DIPLOMACY 

tunity was due to the fact that, although her prime minister 
was jingoistic, there was in England at this time a strong 
sentiment that colonies were unprofitable, and that it was 
the universal tendency for them to ripen and drop from the 
parent tree. Still, Canning himself would probably not 
have acted otherwise. What Great Britain wanted was 
commercial opportunity, and of that the independence of 
Spanish America was sufficient guarantee to the cheapest 
producer in the world. The only portions of America that 
England might desire were Cuba and the Isthmus; but the 
first was Spain's, the second was protected by the Clayton- 
Bulwer treaty. If Great Britain showed a lack of enterprise 
in not pushing her interests during the Civil war, at least 
she was spared recognizing the Monroe Doctrine at its 
close. 

It was probably more nearly a deviation from British 
policy to allow other European powers, like Spain and France, 
. to acquire permanent interests in America, 
and European On that point England had been in agreement 
with us since 1823; the conflicts between us had 
arisen when we were endeavoring to extend our interests. 
Her acquiescence in this case was due to her practical alliance 
with Napoleon, and perhaps to a well-justified cynical belief 
that nothing would come of it. 

Just after the war, in 1867, the House of Representatives 

endeavored to hoist Great Britain on our favorite petard by 

^^ „ declaring that the organization of the Domin- 

The Monroe . ° • <• i i t> • • i 

Doctrine and ion of Canada, the union of the several British 

provinces, constituted such a change of status 
in American affairs as to constitute a violation of the Monroe 
Doctrine. The failure of the administration to urge this 
forced interpretation upon Great Britain deprived her of an 
opportunity of replying to it. 

In 1870 Grant gave expression to a corollary of the Doc- 
trine which had for some time been recognized: "Hereafter 
no territory on this continent shall be regarded as subject to 



CIVIL WAR AND MONROE DOCTRINE 335 

transfer to a European power;" that is even by one European 
power to another. In fact, from 1823 to the present day 
the only violation of this principle has been Grant's corol- 
the unimportant cession of the islanji of Saint Monroe Doc- 
Bartholomew by Sweden to France in 1878.^ ^^^ 
^ Coolidge, The United States as a World Power, 113. 



CHAPTER XXIV 
THE AFTERMATH OF THE CIVIL WAR 

The resolution protesting against the formation of the Do- 
minion of Canada was indicative of a feeling of hostility to 
Anti-British Great Britain which was the most absorbing 
sentiment factor in our diplomacy from 1865 until 1871. 

Based primarily upon our disappointment at England's lack 
of sympathy with the national government during that 
struggle, nourished by the frank unfriendliness of a large 
section of the English press and much of her literature, it 
found many substantial issues which gave occasion for its 
expression. 

The direct loss that we sustained by the depredations of 
the Confederate commerce-destroyers, which Great Britain's 
- . lax interpretation of neutrality allowed to 

merchant range the ocean to the very end of the war, 

was less than the indirect loss which they 
caused by imperilling all vessels bearing the American flag. 
Eight hundred thousand tons of American shipping were 
transferred to foreign flags, chiefly that of Great Britain, and 
what was left to us found itself hampered by almost prohib- 
itory insurance rates. Both these sores were kept open and 
irritated by the failure of the American merchant marine to 
rise again. Its decline, which was due to a variety of causes 
unrelated to the war, had begun about 1857. The most im- 
portant was the introduction of iron ships, which could be 
more cheaply constructed in Great Britain. To the natural 
advantages which that country possessed was added our 
protective tariff system, which increased the cost of our 
ship-building without being able to offer any compensatory 
protection to the ship-owners, engaged as they were in a free 

336 



THE AFTERMATH OF THE CIVIL WAR 337 

international competition. Quite as important, too, was 
the terrific drain upon our resources of capital, credit, and 
labor produced by the era of internal expansion which the 
close of the war ushered in. The rewards coming from the 
development and exploitation of our own country were in- 
comparably greater than those from any industry competing 
directly with that of foreign nations. The transfer of his 
fortune from shipping to railroads, made at this time by 
Commodore Vanderbilt, was the act of a far-seeing business 
man. His example was followed by many other Americans 
concerned in shipping, whether as owners or sailors, and few 
natives now embarked in the old profession. 

These considerations, however, did not at the time sink 
into the national consciousness, which perceived merely 

that until the Civil war our merchant marine _ . t, x • 

. . Great Bntain 

had been a leading American interest, and that held responsi- 

. ble 
after it our flag had almost disappeared from 

competitive trade routes. The events of the war afforded a 

simple explanation, and anger was hot against Great Britain 

as the instrument of the change.^ 

Other subjects of dispute naturally arose with a nation 

with which our connections were so numerous. It became 

a question, for instance, whether the main Boundary and 

channel of the strait of Juan de Fuca ran north ^^ fisheries 

or south of the archipelago of San Juan, whether the islands 

fell to us or to Great Britain. The activities of the American 

and British representatives on the spot might at any time 

cause an explosion.^ Then, too, in 1866 Marcy's reciprocity 

treaty with Canada ran through its prescribed course, and 

we notified Great Britain that we did not care to continue 

it. This reopened the wasp's nest of the fisheries question 

in an atmosphere provoking irritation. 

* W. L. Marvin, The American Merchant Marine, New York, 1902. 

* This is one of the questions that might have afforded a basis for Seward's 
foreign-war panacea. See Mrs. G. E. Pickett's "Wartime Story of General 
Kckett," Cosmopolitan, vol. Iv, pp. 752-760. 



338 AMERICAN DIPLOMACY 

To these problems was added that of the Fenian agitation. 
An Irish nationalistic and republican movement, its leaders 
Fenian move- planned to make the United States the basis 
™®°* for their effort to invade Canada, spread 

terror in England, and force the independence of Ireland. 
Archbishop Hughes had visited Ireland during the Civil 
war, and had successfully stimulated the emigration of 
young men to the United States for the purpose of enlisting 
in the Union armies. As an additional motive he urged that 
they would secure military training that would prove useful 
for "ulterior" purposes. He meant the defence of the Papal 
States ; but he was supposed to refer to the freeing of Ireland, 
and that was the hope that fired thousands of Irish volunteers. 
In 1866 the Fenians invaded Canada across the Niagara 
river, but accomplished nothing. In April of the same year 
an attempt was made to seize the island of Campo Bello, 
just across the New Brunswick border from Maine, to pro- 
claim a republic, and to secure recognition from the United 
States; but this expedition also came to nothing.^ It is not 
without significance that in July the House of Representa- 
tives passed a bill to allow the sale of ships and munitions of 
war to foreign citizens and governments at peace with the 
United States though at war with other countries. 

The chief danger of the Irish movement arose from the fact 

that many of the Fenians were naturalized American citizens, 

, . . . „ and many were veterans of our Civil war. When 

Insh influence • i-m i • i <• i i i 

they got mto diniculties, therefore, they appealed 

to an American public sentiment already alert to take offence 

against the British government. The political influence of 

the Irish leaders, moreover, was so potent that few politicians 

dared oppose them. In 1868 the House passed by 104 to 4 

a bill authorizing the President, in case American citizens 

were arrested for political reasons by a foreign power, to 

suspend commercial relations and detain a corresponding 

• John Rutherford, The Secret History of the Fenian Conspiracy, i vols. 
London, 1877. 



THE AFTERMATH OF THE CIVIL WAR 339 

number of the citizens of the offending government, indiscrim- 
inately selected. This bill Sumner succeeded in modifying in 
the Senate, but still it passed in good round terms. Seward, 
always on close terms with the Irish leaders, in this case 
found any temptation that he may have had to play up to 
them checked by the weightiest of balancing considerations. 
Just when we were urgently pressing upon Great Britain 
our claims for damages based on her failure to perform her 
neutral duties, we could not permit ourselves to be lax. The 
government, while protecting as far as possible the rights of 
American citizens, vigorously enforced the laws that pre- 
vented the use of our territory as a base of hostile operations. 
The crux of the negotiations between the two govern- 
ments was our demand for damages arising from what we 

claimed to be Great Britain's violation of „ . t, •. 

Great Bnt- 

neutrality. Her statutory provision for the ain's practice 
performance of her neutral duties was found ^" ^ 

in her foreign enlistment act of 1819. Although this forbade 
the fitting out of armed vessels, the Confederate commis- 
sioners were legally advised that the purchase of vessels and 
the purchase of arms were both legal, but that the two could 
not be combined in British waters. Acting on this advice, 
Captain Bullock, the Confederate naval representative, con- 
tracted for several vessels, of which the Florida, the Shenan- 
doah, and most important, the Alabama got to sea in the 
manner suggested. Although in April, 1863, the British 
government prevented the Alexandria from being similarly 
handed over, the courts sustained the Confederate agents. 
In this latter case the lord chief baron instructed the jury: 
"If you think the object was to build a ship in obedience to 
an order, and in compliance with a contract, leaving those 
who bought it to make w^hat use they thought fit of it, then 
it appears to me the Foreign enlistment act has not been in 
any degree broken." The American claims for damages 
rested not only on the construction of these vessels, but 
also upon the fact that, by a liberal interpretation of the 



340 AMERICAN DIPLOMACY 

right of belligerent vessels to take on enough provisions to 
reach a home port, they were allowed to use British ports as 
bases for their operations. 

On October 23, 1863, the detention of the Laird rams hav- 
ing shown that the British government had changed its 
Futile negotia- practice with regard to the building of hostile 
*^°°^ warships, Adams offered to submit to arbitra- 

tion our claims for damages caused by those already built. 
Lord Russell said that the construction of British statutes 
could never be submitted to arbitration, that the question 
involved the honor of the country and so was not appro- 
priate for arbitration. It was, of course, obvious that the 
question was not the construction of British statutes, but the 
adequacy of those statutes, as interpreted by the British 
courts, to the maintenance of neutrality; but the negotiation 
dropped. It was renewed under Russell's successor. Lord 
Stanley, but agreement was at first prevented by the ques- 
tion as to the limits of the arbitration, — whether it should 
be confined to claims for damages directly inflicted, or should 
be extended to include those suffered indirectly, such as in- 
surance, cost of pursuit, and the commercial loss of our 
merchant marine. 

In 1868 Reverdy Johnson, who succeeded Adams, ar- 
ranged a convention with Lord Stanley dealing with this 
and other subjects. It gave up our claims for 
Clarendon indirect damages, and so was not entirely satis- 

factory to Seward; nevertheless it was sub- 
mitted to the Senate. February 10, 1869, Seward wrote to 
Johnson: "The confused light of the incoming administration 
is already spreading itself over the country. , . . With your 
experience in legislative life, you will be able to judge for 
yourself of the prospects of definite action upon the treaties 
during the remainder of the present session." 

The confused light broke in a lightening flash when, on 
April 13, 1869, Sumner reported the convention unfavorably 
from the committee on foreign affairs. In one of his most 



THE AFTERMATH OF THE CIVIL WAR 341 

carefully prepared orations he denounced the agreement 
and proclaimed his policy. Our direct claims, he contended, 
were no compensation for our losses; the in- Sumner's 
direct claims, particularly those based on the T^°^^y 
substitution of the British merchant marine for our own, were 
greater and must be made good. Fundamentally, however, 
our grievance against Great Britain rested on the fact that 
by her premature and injurious proclamation of belligerency 
she had prolonged the war for at least two years ; and for the 
cost she should pay. Sumner's total bill amounted to two 
and a half billion dollars. "Whatever may be the final set- 
tlement of these great accounts," he declared, "such must 
be the judgment in any chancery which consults the simple 
equity of the case." ^ 

The explanation of this preposterous demand is revealed 
in a memorandum of Sumner's of January 17, 1871: "The 
greatest trouble, if not peril, being a constant source of 
anxiety and disturbance, is from the Fenians, which is ex- 
cited by the proximity of the British flag in Canada. There- 
fore the withdrawal of the British flag cannot be abandoned 
as a condition preliminary of such a settlement as is now pro- 
posed. To make the settlement complete the withdrawal 
should be from this hemisphere, including provinces and 
islands." As Adams had purchased Florida and Polk New 
Mexico with our claims, as Jackson had proposed to buy 
Texas, so Sumner would purchase all British America. 

Fantastic as was his proposition, it was the result of 
thought, it rested on facts, and to its execution he devoted 
his utmost skill; as much may be said of any Sumner's vi- 
conscientiously constructed house of cards. ^'°° 
He knew that his English friends, many of them highly 
placed and whom he regarded as the real men of that coun- 
try, believed colonies to be a burden, that they would in 
time become free, that Canada would ultimately become 
part of the United States. Cobden had written to him in 
1 Sumner, Works. Boston, 1874-1883, 53-93. 



342 AMERICAN DIPLOMACY 

1849: "I agree with you that nature has decided that Canada 
and the United States must become one for all purposes of 
intercommunication. Whether they also shall be united in 
the same Federal Government must depend upon the two 
parties to the union. I can assure you that there will be no 
repetition of the policy of 1776, on our part, to prevent our 
North American colonies from pursuing their interests in 
their own way. If the people of Canada are tolerably 
unanimous in wishing to sever the very slight thread which 
now binds them to this country, I see no reason why, if 
good faith and ordinary temper be observed, it should not 
be done amicably." As a matter of fact, Gladstone, who be- 
came prime minister in 1869, fifteen years later surrendered 
British authority in the Transvaal and withdrew from the 
Soudan. Sumner's plan to remove all causes for dispute 
with Great Britain, to take another step in our inevitable 
expansion over the continent without a drop of blood, to 
assure the dominance in the United States of northern views 
by thus adding to the northern element, was fitted together 
from the best thought of his generation. 

As Calhoun in his absorption over the Texas question 
failed to see the fallacy in his syllogistic argument for annexa- 
Sumner's mad- tion, SO Sumner, rapt in his vision, utterly 
°®^^ failed to take cognizance of human nature. 

To inaugurate an era of brotherly love and lavish exchanges 
of brotherly favors by presenting a bill for two billion and a 
half dollars, was not tactful. To suppose that his friends 
in England would cooperate in fixing everlasting stigma 
upon the name of Great Britain by acknowledging that she 
had injured us to that extent, was to lose sight of realities. 
To imagine that a people strong and dominant as the Eng- 
lish would leave those friends in power one minute after they 
made such a proposition was to display inexcusable ignorance. 
The only palliation of Sumner's conduct was that he lived 
in a generation which saw such visions, and that even the 
more conservative often yielded to them, as Seward had 



THE AFTERMATH OF THE CIVIL WAR 343 

done when he evolved his foreign-war panacea at the opening 
of the Civil war. One would more readily grant him excuse 
if he had not regarded with such self-nghteous horror others 
who had been or were endeavoring to carry out such visions, 
as Jackson, Calhoun, Polk, and Grant. 

The importance of Sumner's speech was enhanced by its 
popular reception and by the fact that it might be presumed 
to voice the sentiments of the new administra- closing of ne- 
tion. The Johnson-Clarendon convention was gouations 
rejected by a vote of 54 to 1 ; Grant, the new President, being 
a military hero, was expected by many to favor an aggres- 
sive policy; and Motley was sent to England as distinctly of 
Sumner's choice. When the latter, in his first interview, 
told Lord Clarendon that the belligerency proclamation 
was "the fountain head" of all the woes caused "to the 
American people, both individually and collectively, by the 
hands of Englishmen," the British government concluded 
that we would insist on Sumner's views, and put an end to 
the negotiation. 

This result was unfortunate, for as a matter of fact the 
two governments were just approaching an understanding. 
Not only was the Gladstone ministry friendly v • di tti- 

to the United States, but British public senti- tude of the two 

... • ii, 4. -4. J governments 

ment was begmnmg to perceive that it was ad- 
vantageous for Great Britain to yield. Sir Thomas Baring, 
inheriting the friendly sentiments of his house, argued that 
Great Britain, with her immense commerce and her prepared 
navy, was the last power to admit the extemporizing of com- 
merce-destroyers in neutral ports. In time of war, even with 
a land-girt power, every neutral harbor, he urged, would 
be a safe lurking-place for her enemies; the only method of 
prevention would be universal war.^ The American ad- 
ministration, also, was inclined to agreement. The new 
secretary of state, Hamilton Fish, had actually instructed 
Motley to speak of the belligerency proclamation merely as 
^ John Morley, Life of Gladstone, 3 vols., London, etc., 1903. 



344 AMERICAN DIPLOMACY 

indicating "the beginning and the animus of that course of 
conduct which resulted so disastrously to the United States;" 
and even this clause was inserted only because of the violent 
insistence of Sumner. 

In spite of this approach in the views of the two govern- 
ments, it was a delicate task to reopen the negotiation as 
Reopening of neither government wished to take the first 
negotiations g^^p Fortunately it happened that Caleb 
Cushing, for the United States, and John Rose, for Great 
Britain, two able and accomplished diplomats, were in Wash- 
ington negotiating in regard to certain claims of the Hudson 
Bay Company recognized by the treaty of 1846 and by a 
convention of 1867. Finding by informal conversations that 
the ground was secure, Rose on January 11, 1871, presented 
a memorandum suggesting that all questions in dispute be 
made the subject of a general negotiation and treaty. It was 
at this time that Sumner, being invited as chairman of the 
committee on foreign affairs to read Rose's note, revealed 
his plan for securing Canada. It was obvious that he stood 
in the way of any settlement. Grant had already been 
incensed by Motley's disregard of his instructions and by 
Sumner's opposition to his own favorite project, the annexa- 
tion of Santo Domingo, an irritation which became mutual 
when Grant requested Motley to resign, and, on his refusal, 
removed him. The climax was now reached, and Grant 
successfully used his influence with the Senate to secure 
Sumner's removal from his chairmanship. The ground w^as 
ready for another of our great clearing-house agreements 
with Great Britain.^ 

The negotiation was conducted at Washington by a com- 
mission of marked distinction. On the American side were 
Fish, secretary of state, Schenck, minister to Great Britain, 

' This whole negotiation has been the subject of much controversy. In 
addition to Moore's Arbitrations and the forthcoming life of C. F. Adams, 
see D. H. Chaml>crlain, Charles Sumrier and the Treaty of Washington, 
Cambridge, Mass., 1902; Caleb Cushing, The Treaty of Washington, New 
York, 1873; and Rhodes, United States, vi. 337-368. 



THE AFTERMATH OF THE CIVIL W.AR 345 

Justice Nelson of the supreme court, E. R. Hoar of Massa- 
chusetts as interested in the fisheries, and G. H. Wilhams 
of Oregon to present the San Juan controversy, xhe commis- 
Although certainly less able than our dele- ^*°" 
gations at Paris in 1783 or at Ghent in 1815, the body 
was skilled and representative. The British commission 
far exceeded in dignity, as probably in ability, any previously 
sent to us by a foreign power; its makeup was significant 
of our growth in international importance. The chairman 
was Earl de Grey, and with him were Viscount Goderich, 
president of the privy council, Sir Stafford Northcote, Sir 
Edward Thornton, British minister at Washington, Sir 
John Alexander Macdonald, minister of justice for Canada, 
and Montague Bernard, professor of international law at 
Oxford. 

After thirty-seven sittings the treaty was signed, May 8, 
1871. It dealt first with claims for damage done by the 
Alabama and other British-built commerce- «« Alabama 
destroyers. This question was to be submitted ^^^"^^ 
to a tribunal of five arbitrators, one each to be selected by 
the president of the United States, the queen of Great Britain, 
the king of Italy, the president of the Swiss confederation, 
and the emperor of Brazil. This tribunal was to meet at 
Geneva, and was to base its decisions on three rules for the 
conduct of neutral nations: "First, to use due diligence to 
prevent the fitting out . . . within its jurisdiction, of any 
vessel which it has reasonable ground to believe is intended to 
cruise . . . against a Power with which it is at peace . . . ; 
secondly, not to permit . . . either belligerent to make use of 
its ports or waters as the base of naval operations . . .; 
thirdly, to exercise due diligence in its own ports and 
waters ... to prevent any violation of the foregoing obli- 
gations and duties." The insertion of "reasonable ground 
to believe," taken from our neutrality act of 1838, was a 
distinct American triumph. Great Britain would not ac- 
knowledge that this had been the rule during the Civil war. 



346 AMERICAN DIPLOJMACY 

but was now willing to have the cases decided on that basis, 
in order to establish it as the rule for the future. 

Another but less elaborate tribunal, of one commissioner 
appointed by each country and one by both together, was 
Other Civil to decide upon all other claims, British and 
war claims American, that had arisen during the Civil war. 

Articles xviii to xxi of the treaty dealt with the fisheries. 

The principle of reciprocity was again applied. Great Britain 

_, . , . granting us the privileges necessary for the con- 

The nshenes r« i • • i i i tt • i 

duct oi our nshmg industry, and the United 

States conceding free entry of fish oil, and sea fish. Upon the 
contention by the British government that the privileges 
granted to us were more valuable than those which its sub- 
jects received, it was left to a commission, the third and arbi- 
trating member of which was to be appointed by the Austrian 
minister at London, to investigate the matter and assess the 
compensatory sum, if any, that we should pay. 

Article xxvii gave the United States the free navigation 
of the St. Lawrence forever, and Great Britain similar use 
Border ques- of the Yukon, Porcupine, and Stikine. With 
^°^^ England's free use of the Columbia estab- 

lished in 1846, this agreement opened up all the important 
international rivers with which the two countries were con- 
cerned. By the same article the government of Great Bri- 
tain agreed to urge the Dominion of Canada, and that of 
the United States promised to use its influence with those of 
the states concerned, to open up all tlieir respective canals 
connected with the navigation of the Great Lakes on terms 
of equality to both nations; and by article xxviii the United 
States allowed the free navigation of Lake Michigan. Ar- 
ticles xxix and xxx provided for the shipping of goods in 
bond across the border and back under regulation. By ar- 
ticle xxxi Great Britain engaged to urge the Canadian gov- 
ernment to imj)ose no export duly on Maine lumber floated 
down the St. Johns under the provisions of the treaty of 
1846. 



THE AFTERMATH OF THE CIVH. WAR 347 

By article xxiv the question of the San Juan channel 

was submitted to the decision of the emperor 

, ^ Boimdary 

oi (jrermany. 

Comprehensive as was this treaty, and unique in calling 
the direct attention of most of the crowned heads of Europe 
to our affairs, it was overshadowed in interest Geneva arbi- 
by the Geneva arbitration which it evoked. ^^^°°^ 
Never before had such important and irritating international 
disputes voluntarily been submitted to judicial settlement. 
The commission was equal to the significance of its task. 
Grant appointed Charles Francis Adams, who became its 
president, and Queen Victoria chose Sir Alexander Cockburn, 
lord chief justice of England; the commissioners from Italy, 
Switzerland, and Brazil were also men of note. The Amer- 
ican case was presented by William Evarts, M. R. Waite, 
B. R. Curtis, and Caleb Cushing, the first the leader of the 
bar, the second later to be chief justice, and the third a former 
member of the supreme court. The case which they were to 
present was prepared by J. C. Bancroft Davis. 

At this time the American public sentiment that had ap- 
plauded Sumner was still in existence, Sumner himself, 
a power of unknown strength, was still watch- Arbitration in 
ful, the Fenian agitation was again attracting ^^^&^^ 
attention, and a presidential campaign was coming on. The 
administration, therefore, did not venture to admit that it 
had surrendered all our indirect claims in the treaty of Wash- 
ington. It instructed our counsel to insist, not indeed on 
those for the cost of two years of war, but for compensation 
for the transfer of our commerce to the British merchant 
marine, as covered by the clause of the treaty that read, 
"acts committed by the several vessels which have given 
rise to the claims generally known as the ^Alabama Claims.'" 
British public opinion considered this instruction an act of 
bad faith, and the Gladstone government proposed to with- 
draw from the arbitration, knowing that, if it consented to 
submit the consideration of this question to the tribunal. 



348 AMERICAN DIPLOMACY 

it would itself be instantly overthrown. There was no pos- 
sibility that these claims would be allow^ed by the tribunal; 
3'et the United States would not give over presenting them, 
nor Great Britain allow their presentation. 

A point of honor in each case, backed by a public senti- 
ment vociferously led, and in our case at least certainly not 
Adams's solu- representative, seemed likely to wreck the 
*^°° work. Such factors, however, seldom have 

decisive weight in controversies between Anglo-Saxons. The 
solution in this case was found by Adams. At his suggestion 
the arbitration tribunal itself announced, June 19, 1872, 
that it would not consider such claims. Great Britain was 
satisfied, and the United States acquiesced; we could at least 
assert that they had been considered. Our direct claims 
were granted, and bj' the final decision of September 14, 1872, 
the sum of fifteen and a half million dollars was awarded us. 
The commission on other Civil war claims granted British sub- 
jects about two million dollars for illegal imprisonment and 
other such losses incidental to war. The emperor of Ger- 
many decided in our favor in the case of the channel through 
the strait of Juan de Fuca, giving us the islands in dispute.^ 

Thus the difficulties between the United States and Great 

Britain growing out of the Civil war were settled, the treaty 

of 1846 was clarified, some standard ques- 
Accomphsn- , ••cot 

mentsof the tions, such as the navigation of the St. Lawr- 
ence, were settled "forever," and some, like 
the fisheries, were settled for a period of years. The terms of 
the treaty itself reveal a new factor in the relations of the 
two countries that was liable to be a disturbing element in 
the future, namely, the deference of the government of 
Great Britain to the Dominion of Canada. On the other 
hand, and most important of all, the form of the treaty 
marked it as the longest step yet taken by any two nations 
toward the settlement of their disputes by judicial process. 

»T. W. Balch, The Alabama Arbitration, Philadelphia, 1900. 



CHAPTER XXV 
ROUTINE, 1861-1877 

While the problems peculiar to the war received most of 
the attention that the public had to spare for diplomatic 
affairs, between 1861 and 1877, they did not relieve the 
administration from the necessity of handling routine busi- 
ness and continuous policies. 

One immediate result of the passing of governmental con- 
trol to the North was the recognition and establishment 
of diplomatic intercourse with the negro gov- The negro 
ernments of Hayti, now a republic after a sue- ^^^^^^ 
cession of empires, and of Liberia. The latter had been a 
protege of the United States ever since it was founded in 
1819 to serve as a home for our emancipated slaves; we had 
protected it from foreign interference, but had not so to 
speak, recognized it socially. The other American negro na- 
tion, Dominica, we recognized as soon as Spanish control 
was withdrawn, and we have never since refused recognition 
to any nation because of its race. We made a first treaty 
with Liberia in 1862, with Hayti in 1864, with the Dominican 
Republic in 1867; and possibly our first treaty with the king- 
dom of Madagascar in 1867 should come under this head. 

A similar change is to be found in our policy toward 
the slave trade. Seward's convention of 1862, allowing mu- 
tual search in certain specified parts of the The slave 
ocean, with trial by mixed courts, has been *^^^® 
mentioned. The area of ocean subject to this arrangement 
was extended in 1863, and in 1870 the provision with regard 
to mixed courts was dropped. In 1890 we joined in a general 
international act for the suppression of the trade, and in 
1904 in a similar act for the suppression of the trade in white 
women. After our own abolition of slavery we readily co- 

349 



350 AMERICAN DIPLOMACY 

operated in stamping it out everywhere. It is of course to 
be noted that the danger of an arbitrary and dangerous use 
of the mutual right of search in times of peace, of which 
there were grounds to justify fear in the earUer period, had 
disappeared by 1870, owing to the change in our relative 
strength and the development of international law. 

The sweep of our treaty relations was already so compre- 
hensive that the only first treaty we made with any nation 
aside from the negro governments was that 
with Orange Free State in 1871 . The formation 
of the kingdom of Italy in 1861 and of the German empire in 
1871 did not require special attention, for they inherited 
treaty obligations from their controlling or constituent states; 
but, as new questions arose, treaties were made, with Italy 
in 1868 and with Germany in 1871. 

Even during the Civil war we did not drop our pursuit of 
claims, and we hotly renewed the chase when the war was 
over. In 1863 and 1868 Peru and the United 
States submitted their mutual claims to arbitra- 
tion, the balance in both cases being in our favor. In 1866 
the American claims against Venezuela were arbitrated, and 
about a million and a quarter dollars were awarded to us. 
A mutual arbitration with Mexico, begun by a treaty of 1868, 
gave a balance of about four million to our citizens. In 1871 
our claims against Spain based on the revolution in Cuba 
were started on their long history by the consummation of a 
treaty. Finally during the Franco-Prussian war we came 
near becoming liable for a violation of neutrality by our own 
government in the sale of arms owned l)y the nation to 
France,^ but the episode resulted in no ill consequences. 

The area covered by our extradition treaties was increased 
by the addition of Belgium, Ecuador, Italy, Nicaragua, the 
Ottoman empire, Salvador, and Spain. Where treaties did 
not exist, the surrender of fugitives from justice by virtue 

' Adolf Hepner, America's Aid to Germany in 1S70-71, St. Louis, 1905; 
Schurz, Speeches, etc., v. 33-37. 



ROUTINE, 1861-1877 351 

of international courtesy was a delicate matter for us. We 
would not surrender those fleeing from punishment for politi- 
cal offences or from military service, and so we „ 

, , , , . » , Extradition 

were loath to ask other nations tor the return 

of our own fugitives. The action of the Spanish government 
in turning over to us the notorious Boss Tweed, in 1876, be- 
fore the formation of our treaty with her, was therefore 
much appreciated. 

A new line of diplomatic activity was represented by trea- 
ties for the protection of trademarks, made with Russia 
and Belgium in 1868, France in 1869, and Trademarks, 
Austria in 1871. A still more remarkable ex- meSIres?and 
tension of the scope of diplomacy and of our copyrights 
acceptance of the principle of international cooperation was 
our participation, in 1875, in an international convention 
for the establishment at Paris of a bureau of weights and 
measures to be maintained at the joint expense of the con- 
tracting nations. Diplomacy, however, was not allowed to 
take any steps toward similar protection for authors by 
means of international copyrights. As the most conspicuous 
example of the use of the same language by two great na- 
tions, Great Britain and the United States really occupied 
a unique position with reference to this question, and the 
latter was the greatest pirate in that form of theft. The 
matter had long been urged upon us by Dickens, the greatest 
sufferer, and by many of our own authors and public men. 
Collectively, however, we showed no more disposition to 
surrender our profits than had the pirates of Barbary. 
The sums involved were greater than those at stake in 
our relations with the North African states, and the moral 
delinquency must probably be judged to be about the 
same.^ 

Continuing the policy of freeing the navigation of great 
international rivers, the United States, acting in agreement 
but not in formal cooperation with other powers, made 

^ R. R. Bowker, Copyright, its History and its Law, Boston, etc., 1912. 



352 AMERICAN DIPLOMACY 

a treaty with Hanover in 1861, opening the Elbe, and one 
with Belgium in 1863, opening the Scheldt. In each case 
Freeing river we paid a proportional part of a capital sum 
navigation which was divided among various nations "pro 

rata to their navigation." 

Although the definite undertaking of the first transcon- 
tinental railroad through our territory in 1862 diminished 
Transcon- ^^^ interest in the isthmus routes, and its 

tinentai com- completion in 1869 lessened their importance, 
munication . . ... 

we continued our policy of obtaining the right 

of free use and the guarantee of their neutrality. In a treaty 
with Honduras in 1864 we undertook a guarantee of the 
proposed " Interoceanic railroad" through that country in 
return for the establishment of free terminal ports for trade 
and commerce, but we made the agreement conditional upon 
our right to withdraw on six months' notice if dissatisfied 
with our treatment by the company. A treaty with Nicara- 
gua in 1867 gave us free use of her isthmus even for troops, 
in return for a guarantee of neutrality in which we agreed 
to ask other nations to join. Now, with the change in the 
conditions of transportation, it was a question whether such 
treaties might not be more of a burden than an advantage. 
Fish wrote to Baxter, our representative in Honduras, 
May 12, 1871, "The guarantee to Honduras of neutrality 
of interoceanic communication does not imply that the 
United States is to maintain a police or other force in Hon- 
duras for the purpose of keeping petty trespassers from the 
railway." 

Although we made numbers of commercial treaties during 
this j)eriod, we pressed the policy of reciprocity less con- 
Hawaiian red- spicuously than heretofore. In the treaty of 
procity Washington the fisheries were dealt with on 

that basis, but in much more restricted form than in Marcy's 
treaty on the same subject. The treaty with the Hawaiian 
islands in 1875 was a conspicuous exception. This was the 
most thorough application of the principle into which we 



ROUTINE, 1861-1877 353 

had ever entered. It was on the basis of entry customs free, 
and included practically all articles of exchange, the most 
important being Hawaiian-grown sugar. It amounted prac- 
tically to a customs union, and represented not so much a 
general commercial policy as our growing conception that 
Hawaii was another of our special interests. 

Although in the Pacific, Hawaii is for purposes of our policy 
to be regarded as connected with the American continents. 

With the further side of that ocean we continued , 

Japan 
to develop our diplomatic relations, although 

with the passing of our merchant marine and the substitution 
of petroleum for whale oil, our material interests declined. 
With Japan we entered into a convention in 1864, fixing her 
duties on certain of our exports; but this agreement cannot 
be considered as an example of reciprocity, for we made no 
corresponding concessions. The most interesting point in 
our Japanese relations, however, was our apparently uncon- 
scious adoption of a new practice with regard to interna- 
tional relations. In America we refused to admit European 
interference; in Europe we refrained from interfering; in 
Asia we began to show a willingness actively to cooperate 
with European powers. In 1864 we took part with Great 
Britain, France, and the Netherlands in "chastising" Mori 
Daizen, feudatory prince of Najato and Suwo, who, in de- 
fiance of the Tycoon, closed the straits of Shimonoseki; and 
we united also in demanding compensation from the Tycoon, 
receiving our fourth share of the three million dollars that 
he paid. In 1866 we joined the same powers in exacting 
from Japan a revision of her tariff, the rates being fixed by 
the treaty. This regulation proved burdensome to Japan 
after the revolution and the establishment of the power of 
the Mikado, and in 1872 a Japanese embassy made a cir- 
cular tour to secure its reconsideration, as well as that of the 
earlier treaties which excepted foreigners from the jurisdic- 
tion of the native courts and gave the various consuls judi- 
cial power over their respective citizens. Secretary Fish 



354 AMERICAN DIPLOIVIACY 

wrote, September 14, 1874, "The President is impressed 
with the importance of continued concert between the treaty 
powers in Japan, at least until after the revision of the trea- 
ties, and until the government of Japan shall have exhibited 
a degree of power and capacity to adopt and to enforce a 
system of jurisprudence and of judicial administration, in 
harmony with that of the Christian powers, equal to their 
evident desire to be relieved from the enforced duties of 
extraterritoriality . ' ' 

With China our relations were particularly pleasant. An- 
son Burlingame, whom Lincoln sent as minister, was so highly 
regarded there that in 1868 he returned to the 
United States accredited Chinese minister to 
her and other western powers. Representing China, he con- 
cluded a treaty with us in 1868. This granted China the right 
to appoint consuls to reside in the United States, but without 
such extraterritorial powers as our consuls exercised in China. 
We agreed, in case China wished aid in internal improve- 
ments, to designate suitable engineers and to recommend 
other nations to do the same. The most important clause 
was that prohibiting the importation of coolies or forced 
emigrants. This precaution was called for by the bringing 
into this country of thousands of laborers who were prac- 
tically slaves, many of whom were employed in the con- 
struction of the Pacific railroads. The prohibition is prob- 
ably more to be connected with the attempt to stamp out 
the last remnants of slavery than with the feeling against 
Chinese labor. The latter sentiment, however, was daily 
growing stronger on the Pacific coast, and the Burlingame 
treaty was violently attacked because of its failure to deal 
with the broader question.^ 

By far the most important routine duty of diplomacy, 

^ M. R. Coolidge, Chinese Immigration, New York, 1909; G. F. Seward, 
Chinese Imniif/ration in its Social and Economical Aspects, New York, 1<S81; 
F. W. Williams, Anson Burlingame and the first Chinese Mission to Foreign 
Powers, New York, 1912. 



ROUTINE, 1861-1877 355 

however, was that of estabhshing the international status 
of our naturalized citizens. Seward wrote, August 22, 
1867, "The question is one which seems to . 

have been ripening for very serious discussion uraiized citi- 
when the breaking out of the Civil war in this 
country obliged us to forego every form of debate which 
was likely to produce hostility or even irritation abroad." 
The bill of 1868 providing for the defence of American cit- 
izens abroad declared that the "right of expatriation" was 
"a natural and inherent right of all people," and that 
naturalized citizens of the United States should receive the 
same protection as native citizens. It was obviously neces- 
sary for the administration to press our position upon the 
attention of foreign countries, and it was fortunate that the 
handling of this delicate problem fell to the historian George 
Bancroft, from 1867 to 1874 minister first to the 
several German states and then to the German 
empire. Educated in Germany and a scholar of repute, he 
possessed the kind of ability and distinction that particularly 
appealed to that nation. His relations with Bismarck were 
very friendly. Once kept waiting for an audience because 
the Turkish representative was granted precedence based on 
ambassadorial rank, he protested that our national impor- 
tance gave us the right to equality of treatment in matters of 
business regardless of rank. He was never again kept wait- 
ing, although his claim to equality of treatment had no basis 
in diplomatic custom.^ 

In 1868 he obtained a treaty with the North German 
Union. The German governments acknowledged the right 
of their citizens to transfer their allegiance by five years' 
uninterrupted residence accompanied by naturalization. A 
subsequent residence of two years in Germany was to be 

1 M. A. D. Howe, The Life and Letters of George Bancroft, 2 vols.. New 
York, 1908; J. S. Wise, A Treatise on American Citizenship, Northport, 
N. Y., 1906; F. G. Franklin, The Legislative History of Naturalization, 
Chicago, 1906. 



356 AMERICAN DIPLOMACY 

held as a renunciation of United States citizenship, and 
naturalized citizens remained liable to punishment for acts 
Treaties with committed before emigration. This treaty was 
German states j-^pidly followed by similar agreements with 
otlier German states, Baden, Bavaria, Hesse, and Wiirttem- 
burg, all in 1868. Treaties were made with Belgium and 
Mexico in the same year, with Sweden and Norway in 1869, 
with Austria in 1870, and with Ecuador in 1872. 

Our agreement with Great Britain was almost as impor- 
tant as the one with Germany. The impressment problem 
Treaty with was not likely to come up again, but the Fenians 
Great Britain ^ere giving the ciuestion of the international 
status of our British-born citizens every twist of which it 
seemed capable. The acts for which they were arrested in 
Great Britain were generally criminal, such as the dynamit- 
ing of public buildings, an offence for which our native citi- 
zens would have been equally punishable; but cases did 
arise in which the question of nationality was important. 
The Gladstone government rightly determined that the 
doctrine of indefeasible allegiance was inapplicable to exist- 
ing world conditions, and evinced its willingness to take the 
question up. Most appropriately the American negotiator 
was Motley, Bancroft's professional colleague. In this case 
he successfully carried out the purpose of the government 
and in 1870 concluded a treaty more satisfactory than those 
with the German states, in that it contained no reference 
to punishment for offences previous to naturalization or 
to an automatic relapse of nationality after two years' resi- 
dence in one's native land. 

These treaties provided for most of our naturalized citi- 
zens at the time, and the United States has since success- 
Questions un- fully insisted upon similar principles in the 
settled ^„^j,g ^f nearly all other countries from which 

she has recruited her population. Bancroft's treaty with 
Germany really marked the turning-point in the world's 
attitude towards the question of allegiance. Many details. 



ROUTINE, 1861-1877 357 

however, remained unsettled. The status of a foreigner who 
had declared his intention of becoming a citizen and had 
not completed his naturalization was anomalous. Many of 
our states, moreover, admit to the suffrage in less than jBve 
years. Questions have arisen as to the liability of a foreigner 
subject to military conscription who leaves home before 
reaching the age of service but does not become an Amer- 
ican citizen until after passing that age. The question of the 
validity of naturalization papers has proved annoying, as they 
have been bought and sold for the protection they afford. 
One of the most trying problems has arisen from the un- 
doubted right of any nation to exclude foreigners. This 
right we have not denied, but we have objected to dis- 
crimination between our naturalized and our natural cit- 
izens. In 1912 we denounced our treaty with Russia be- 
cause of her discrimination against our citizens of the 
Jewish race. 

Such questions have from 1868 to the present day taken 
up a large proportion of the time and attention of our state 
department and diplomatic service. No num- Present posi- 
ber of precedents seems able to prevent the ur^zed^^citi- 
development of new situations. In general zens 
the government has insisted upon its sole right to determine 
the validity of its papers, but it is always willing to investi- 
gate cases brought to its attention. It has not conceded 
the right of foreign governments to punish our citizens for 
the act of emigration, but it has admitted that evasion 
of military service is a punishable act. It has not con- 
tinued to extend its protection to naturalized citizens 
who are known to have taken up their permanent resi- 
dence in their native countries. Upon the whole, these 
questions, though still handled by the diplomatic staff and 
liable at any time to cause an international rupture, may 
be said to have become matters of legal detail, their fun- 
damental principles being well understood and generally 
accepted. 



358 AMERICAN DIPLOMACY 

With all these matters of routine upon his mind, in addi- 
tion to the pressing necessities of the Civil war and its 
Seward and results, and with a weather eye always di- 
expansion rected to politics, Seward, most indefatigable 

of our secretaries of state, did not lose his vision of peaceful 
expansion.^ One stroke of luck enabled him to confirm his 
prophecy of 1861 with regard to Russia's building on the 
Arctic the outposts of the United States. Our interest in 
Alaska was not new. Senator Gwin of California had brought 
up the question of its purchase in 1859, and the matter was 
talked over with the Russian minister. The latter did not 
express indignation at the suggestion, but 
thought that the five millions mentioned as a 
price was too small. After the war interest reappeared in 
the Pacific coast states, but was not sufficiently strong to set 
our machinery in motion. In fact, when in 1867 Russia 
offered Alaska to us, the general sentiment of the country 
viewed our acceptance of the proposition as a favor.^ 

Seward, however, leaped to the opportunity, yet not so 
far as to lose his diplomatic address. Stoeckl, the Russian 
Seward's ac- minister at Washington, suggested ten mil- 
*^^'*^ lions as a proper price, Seward five millions. 

Stoeckl proposed to split the difference, and Seward agreed 
if Stoeckl would knock off the odd half-million. Stoeckl 
finally said that he would do so if Seward would add two 
hundred thousand as special compensation to the Russian 
American Company, making the price seven million two 
hundred thousand. Elate, Seward roused Sumner from bed 
at midnight, and the three drew up the agreement between 
then and four o'clock. The treaty ceded all Russia's terri- 
tory in America, and ran a boundary through Behring 
strait and sea, dividing the islands. It provided, as usual, 

»T. C. Smith, "Expansion after the Civil War, 1865-1871," Political 
Science Quarterly, 1901, xvi. 112-436. 

^ H. H. Bancroft, Alaska (San Francisco, 1886), ch. xxviii.; see also O. S. 
Straus, The American Spirit, New York, 1913, and in Providence Journal, 
June 4, 1905. 



ROUTINE, 1861-1877 359 

that the civilized inhabitants were to become United States 
citizens, but said nothing of their incorporation into the 
Union. 

To secure the acceptance of the treaty seemed to be more 
diflScult than to make it. To this task Sumner devoted 
himself. He delivered a speech setting forth Russia and the 
with learning and appreciation the possibil- ^^^^ed States 
ities of the territory, but his success was perhaps due less 
to his material arguments than to the general impression 
that we owed a favor to Russia, to an undercurrent of 
belief that this was our part of a secret bargain, as a result 
of which Russia had lent us her fleet in 1863. From this hazy 
impression two facts emerge; in the first place, there was no 
such bargain; in the second place, one fleet did actually come 
to New York and another to San Francisco with sealed in- 
structions to put themselves at our service in case of inter- 
vention by Great Britain and France. While the czar prob- 
ably was sympathetic with the North and saw with regret 
the disappearance of our merchant marine, it is doubtful 
whether his action was chiefly prompted by these considera- 
tions. Russia was in 1863 as much alarmed at the prospect 
of intervention by Great Britain, France, and Austria in 
her affairs as we were at the possibility that England and 
France might interfere in ours. The Poles were once more 
writhing under Russian rule and most of Europe was protest- 
ing at Russia's atrocities. When, therefore, in May, 1863, 
Seward refused an invitation from France to join the pro- 
test, his reply, based on the Monroe Doctrine, may well have 
excited the czar's gratitude. Moreover, the Russian fleets 
more probably came to our harbors for their own protection 
than for ours; that of the Pacific had no winter harbor in 
the East and dared not go home, that of the Atlantic, lying 
on the Spanish coast, dared not go through the English Chan- 
nel, a fear analogous to that with which, in the late Japanese 
war, Russia's fleet passed so nervously through those un- 
friendly waters. 



360 AMERICAN DIPLOMACY 

The legend of Russia's aid, however, was apparently the 
decisive factor in securing the acceptance of the treaty, and 
Success of the has afforded the main basis for a somewhat 
^^^^ curious friendship between the two nations 

ever since. When, in 1871, the grand duke Alexis visited this 
country, Oliver Wendell Holmes greeted him with the lines, 

" Bleak are our coasts with the blasts of December, 
Throbbing and wiirm are the hearts that remember. 
Who was our friend, when the world was our foe." 

Seward also thought of securing the annexation of Hawaii, 

but his main interest was devoted to the Caribbean. The 

„ .. National Democratic Convention in 1856 de- 

Hawaii 

clared, "That the Democratic party will expect 

of the next administration that every proper effort be made 

to increase our ascendancy in the Gulf of Mexico and to 

_ ., ,, maintain permanent protection to the great 

Gulf of Mexico , , , , . , . , . ^ . 

outlets through which are emptied into its 

waters the products raised out of the soil and the com- 
modities created by the industry of the people of our 
Western valleys and of the Union at large." It was true 
that, with Florida far flung to the south and untravers- 
able, our Mississippi commerce must in time of war run 
the gauntlet, by one exit of five hundred miles threat- 
ened by Spanish Cuba and the British Bahamas and pro- 
tected by our solitary and isolated port of Key West, or 
else must, by the other exit, pass Cuba and the British 
Jamaica, with no harbor of refuge. This danger was brought 
so vividly before the minds of those in authority by the 
exigencies of the Civil war, that at that time we actually 
leased the harbor of St. Nicholas from Hayti. 

In January, 1865, Seward broached the question of pur- 
chasing from Denmark the island of St. Thomas, whose splen- 

_ . , , did harbor, iust to the east of Porto Rico, would 
Danish islands . i • p i 

secure us a convenient naval station for the pro- 
tection of the eastern route. After much bargaining, a treaty 
was at length drawn up ceding both St. Thomas and St. Johns 



ROUTINE, 1861-1877 861 

for seven and a half millions, subject to a popular vote by the 
inhabitants in favor of annexation, a condition upon which 
Denmark vigorously insisted in opposition to the views of 
Seward. After some contest a vote was taken which resulted 
in our favor. To the effort to get the treaty ratified, how- 
ever, the same popular opposition was demonstrated that 
encountered the Alaska treaty, but in this case popular sen- 
timent was not caught by Denmark, though she too had 
proved to be our friend in the war. The House voted that 
it would not appropriate the money, the Senate laid the 
treaty on the table, and when Grant came in he dismissed 
it as a "scheme of Seward's." ^ 

Meantime, in 1867 George Bancroft was instructed to 
stop at Madrid, on his way to Berlin, to attempt the purchase 
of Culebra and Culebrita, islands in the same Spanish 
locality belonging to Spain; but as usual, ^^^^^^ 
that country would not entertain the proposal to sell her 
colonies. 

A more important undertaking, however, was taking shape. 
In 1866 Admiral Porter was sent to inspect Samana Bay, in 
the Dominican republic, with reference to its 
use as a naval station. It was situated near the 
islands already considered, and proved to be in many ways 
ideal for the purpose. In February, 1868, a convention was 
drawn up with the Dominican government providing for a 
twelve years' lease, in return for a million in gold and a million 
currency in the form of arms. President Baez, who wanted the 
arms, was not uninclined to sell out the whole republic while 
his government still had a going value, and proposed annexa- 
tion, to be carried into effect without the formality of a pop- 
ular referendum. Seward, taking a different view of the latter 
question from that which he had assumed in the case of the 
Danish islands, demanded a popular vote; but it still seemed 
possible to bring the negotiation to a head in an acceptable 
form. 

^ James Parton, The Danish Islands, Boston, 1869. 



362 AMERICAN DIPLOMACY 

President Johnson, who left Seward a very free hand in 
diplomacy, referred to the subject in his annual message of 
1868: "Comprehensive national policy would 
annex San seem to sanction the acquisition and incorpora- 
tion into our Federal Union of the several 
adjacent continental and insular communities as speedily 
as it can be done peacefully, lawfully, and without any viola- 
tion of national justice, faith, or honor. ... I am satisfied 
that the time has arrived when even so direct a proceeding 
as a proposition for an annexation of the two Republics of 
the island of St. Domingo would not only receive the con- 
sent of the people interested, but would also give satisfaction 
to all other foreign nations." Seward took up the question 
with General Banks, chairman of the House committee on 
foreign affairs, and a resolution favoring it was introduced. 
A test vote, however, was defeated 110 to 63. In the summer 
of 1868 Seward wrote to our representative in Hawaii, "The 
public mind refuses to dismiss" domestic questions "even 
so far as to entertain the higher but more remote questions 
of national expansion and aggrandizement." 

Although Grant threw aside the Danish treaty, and his 
secretary, Fish, refused to entertain a proposition from the 
Swedish Swedish minister for the purchase of her West 

islands India islands, the San Domingo proposal took 

on a new lease of life with the new administration. Grant 
made it his particular policy; perhaps he felt safer with a 
Grant and scheme of Baez's than with one of Seward's. He 
San Domingo proceeded like a cavalry officer on a raid. He 
sent as his secret and personal agent General Babcock, who 
speedily concluded a treaty. This document provided among 
other things that the United States should pay a million 
eight hundred thousand dollars, assume the national debt 
in return for the public lands, and protect the Dominican 
republic until a free expression of the public will could be 
given. This promise was made concrete by the fact that 
Babcock was accompanied by three men-of-war, instructed 



ROUTINE, 1861-1877 363 

to protect the Dominican government, and "if Haytians 
attack the Dominicans with their ships, destroy or capture 
them." If one compares this policy of protection during the 
pendency of annexation with the cautious words of Calhoun 
in the case of Texas, one is reminded of the remark, " What is 
the constitution among friends?" But probably Grant him- 
self did not even consider the constitution in this connection. 

The agreement continued, the President "promises pri- 
vately to use all his influence in order that the idea of annex- 
ing the Dominican Republic to the United Defeat of Bab- 
States may acquire such a degree of popularity ^°^^ ^®^*^ 
among members of congress as will be necessary for its ac- 
complishment." Grant presented the treaty to the Senate, 
January 18, 1870, and by message and interviews faithfully 
carried out his word. Nevertheless, the treaty was rejected, 
June 30, by a tie vote. 

Meanwhile President Baez had busied himself with floating 
a loan on the London market, which would be assumed by the 
United States in case of annexation. British Renewal of 
financial interests strongly favored annexation. *^® proposal 
In spite of the rejection of the treaty and the outbreak of do- 
mestic revolution, he assured his congress, "The measure will, 
nevertheless, succeed in the end, for it is a necessity in the 
progress of humanity, whose unseen agent is Providence it- 
self." The seen agent in this case was Grant. He extended 
his protection for a year, and in his next message to Congress 
applied the lash of foreign intrigue. Should the treaty be 
ultimately refused, he said, "a free port will be negotiated 
for by European nations in the Bay of Samana. A large 
commercial city will spring up, to which we will be tributary 
without receiving corresponding benefits, and then will be 
seen the folly of our rejecting so great a prize." At last he 
secured from Congress authority to send a San Domingo 
commission to report on conditions, and, con- commission 
fident in the value of his proposal, appointed for the mission 
able and honorable men, — Benjamin F. Wade, Andrew D. 



364 AMERICAN DIPLOMACY 

White, and Samuel S. Howe. They were accompanied by 
A. A. Burton and Frederick Douglass, who served as secre- 
taries. The commission made a well-balanced and not un- 
favorable report, but the proposition was dead. 

Fruitless as it proved in itself, the San Domingo question 
influenced many other things. Sumner reported it unfavor- 
ably from the Senate committee, and thereby 
Arguments , r>, , • i. i • i i i 

against ex- earned (jrrant s enmity, a tact which largely 

pansion accounted for the latter's willingness to depose 

him when he stood, next winter, in the way of the treaty of 
Washington. The debate, too, was the only exhaustive one 
on expansion between the Mexican and the Spanish wars. 
In a great speech in the Senate, January 11, 1871, Carl 
Schurz summed up the reasons that defeated, in this period, 
the dream of expansion which Seward and others had brought 
over from the last. He feared that this was but a step in a 
general campaign of expansion that would stretch us through 
the West Indies and Mexico to the isthmus. He feared the 
incorporation into the Union of these tropic territories, 
where self-government had never flourished, where free labor 
was never successful. Our true expansion had been west- 
ward, migration followed isothermal lines, and we now em- 
braced the habitat suited to the nations from whom we had 
drawn and should continue to draw our people ; San Domingo 
was not a proper home for them. He believed that the pro- 
tection of a naval station so far away would raise more prob- 
lems than it would solve. The irregularities of the Presi- 
dent's conduct he condemned, foreign ambitions he scouted, 
and he made easy fun of "manifest destiny." He did not, 
however, call attention to a fact which undoubtedly had 
much to do with the popular sentiment against expansion, 
namely, that the movement had just before the war become 
so identified with southern interests that the North was 
suspicious of every such suggestion.^ 

Meanwhile, from 1868 to 1878 insurrection in Cuba the 
^ Schurz, Speeches, etc., ii. 71-122. 



ROUTINE, 1861-1877 365 

desired invited our attention. As Grant made San Domingo 
his specialty, so his secretary of state assumed direction of 
the Cuban question. Although Grant first ap- Grant and 
pointed Elihu Washburne to this position, it ^^^^ 
was merely with the idea of honoring an old friend. After 
five days' service Washburne resigned and was promptly 
appointed minister to France, where he played a useful and 
distinguished part during the Franco-German war and the 
Commune. He was succeeded as secretary by Hamilton 
Fish, who outserved Grant three days. A less aggressive 
man than Seward, serving under a more interfering President 
than either Lincoln or Johnson, he achieved less and deserved 
no particular fame for originality. He was, however, trained, 
skilled, dignified, and wise. He played somewhat the same 
role with Grant that Marcy had with Pierce.-^ 

The Cuban situation was particularly complicated by 
reason of the rapid change of governments in Spain,— the 
overthrow of Isabella in 1870, the formation Cuban insur- 
of a constitutional monarchy under Amedeo ^^^^^°°^ 
of Savoy in 1871, the proclamation of a republic in 1873, 
and the return of the Bourbons under Alfonso in 1874. In 
Cuba also the population was divided, the native "volun- 
teers" fighting the insurrectionists even more bitterly than 
did the Spanish troops. Sympathy for the insurgents was 
keen in the United States, and the presence of native Cu- 
bans in our country and of American naturalized Cubans in 
the island led to constant agitation for us to take a hand in 
the conflict. To these considerations were added the tradi- 
tional, though not then dominant, belief that Cuba was 
eventually destined to become part of the United States. 

The three questions which we had to consider were neu- 
trality, mediation, and intervention. On the first one our 
policy was to some extent dictated by our contemporary dis- 
pute with England. Criticizing her issuance of the bellig- 

1 F. E. Chadwick, Relations of the United States and Spain — Diplomacy 
(New York, 1909), chs. xlv-xix. 



366 AMERICAN DIPLOMACY 

erency proclamation, Fish desired to restrain us from taking 
similar action, particularly as the insurgents possessed no 
ports or marine. In this object he was suc- 
cessful, although the President and Congress 
were restive. Grant, it is said, had for a long time a proc- 
lamation ready to sign, in his desk. The fact that we did 
not recognize belligerency did not, however, reliev^e us of 
our neutral duties, which we vigorously performed, although 
we were not able entirely to prevent aid from this country 
reaching Cuba. 

Mediation was offered by Fish in 1869, Marshal Prim hav- 
ing expressed his willingness to consent even to Cuban inde- 
pendence. The exigencies of Spanish politics, 
Mediation f , , . . •, i V i 

however rendered it impossible lor her govern- 
ment to agree to any terms upon which we would act. In 1874, 
we made another offer, in which, a year later, we asked Great 
Britain, Germany, Prussia, Italy, and Austria to join. The 
United States "neither sought nor desired any physical force 
or pressure, but simply the moral influence of concurrence 
of opinion as to the protraction of the contest." Italy did 
act, but again there was no result. 

Intervention by force we did not try, though Fish used 
the possibility of it as a goad to move Spain to activity in 

meeting our demands. Peaceably, however, we 
Interventioii . . t i • 

were constantly intervening. In the instruc- 
tions to Caleb Cushing, who was sent to Spain in 1874, — the 
situation having at length convinced the government that we 
needed a minister of ability there, — Fish explained our Cuban 
j)olicy and our special interest in the island. Commercially 
as well as geographically, he argued, it was more closely con- 
nected with us than with Spain; civil dissension there pro- 
duced an effect on us second only to that produced in Spain; 
the local Spanish government was able to injure our citizens, 
but we could obtain reparation only by the slow and cum- 
brous method of applying to Spain. The United States had 
no desire for annexation; but "the desire for independence 



ROUTINE, 1861-1877 367 

on the part of the Cubans" "is a natural and legitimate 
aspiration of theirs, because they are Americans, and while 
such independence is the manifest exigency of the political 
interests of the Cubans themselves, it is equally so that of 
the rest of America, including the United States." 

With these special interests as a reason and the possibility 
of intervention as a motive force, we successfully insisted on 
maintaining a certain supervision of the con- influence in 
test. Partly at our instance, Spain finally ^^^^ 
adopted a system of gradual emancipation of slaves, a step 
which Buchanan had so feared she would take at the in- 
stance of Great Britain. Spain also promised us reform in 
local government, and modified her methods of conducting 
the war. In 1871 a convention was signed submitting to 
arbitration the claims of our citizens growing out of the 
hostilities in Cuba. Spain, however, would not admit her 
responsibility for losses by act of the insurgents, though we 
claimed that, since we had not recognized a state of war, 
her responsibility was complete. 

In 1873 the seizure on the high seas of the Virginius, flying 
an American flag and with American papers, caused an out- 
burst of popular indignation that seemed likely „. . . _ . 
to drive us from our policy of watchful peace. 
The incident was rendered still more acute by the summary 
trial and condemnation to death of the crew. The fact that 
the Spanish government ordered a suspension of the sentences 
illustrated Fish's point with regard to the diplomatic incon- 
venience of the situation; for many executions took place 
before the reprieve was delivered in Cuba. Our attorney- 
general decided that the Virginius was improperly using 
our flag, and that she was engaged in filibustering contrary 
to our law, but that Spain had no right to seize her while 
flying our flag on the high seas, belligerency not being recog- 
nized. We demanded indemnity, the return of the Virginius, 
a salute to our flag, and the punishment of the officers guilty 
of the execution of the crew, an act "inhuman and in viola- 



368 AMERICAN DIPLOMACY 

tion of the civilization of the age." Spain called attention 
to the fact that in the case of VAviistad our supreme court 
had exercised the right of going behind the official papers 
and examining the actual status of the vessel. On this point 
we yielded, omitting our demand for a salute. Our other 
conditions were accepted. In carrying them out, however, 
Spain almost drove us into war. The trial of her oflBcers 
was not pressed, and the general responsible for the execu- 
tions was promoted. On being returned, moreover, the 
Virginius straightway sank, by the machinations, it was be- 
lieved, of the Spanish officers in charge. The administra- 
End of insur- tion, however, kept its hand on the situation, 
rection ^^^ Grant in his annual message of December, 

1875, announced that our relations with Spain were friendly. 
General Martinez de Campos, the new governor-general of 
Cuba, proved tactful and efficient, and the insurrection 
gradually died out. 

The diplomatic problems of the Civil war had practically 
been solved by 1872, but the continuity of personnel and of 
Significance of domestic conditions serve to give a unity to 
the CivU war ^j^^ ^j^^j^ period froj^ 1861 to 1877. The most 

important in our diplomatic history since independence, its 
record was marked not so much by progress as by our suc- 
cess in outriding a storm. Our stake was not independence 
but unity, and our success in preserving unity was not solely 
and perhaps not mainly of domestic importance. Division 
meant not only the severing of established ties, but increased 
liability to quarrel. Peaceful acceptance of secession in 1861 
would have been followed, not by perpetual peace between 
North and South, but by perpetual imminence of war, un- 
ceasing preparation for war, and ultimately not by one war 
but by many. The freedom to expend all our resources upon 
our own internal development would have been sacrificed, 
and the military system of Euroj)e would have been trans- 
ferred to America. And not the system only. Our pre- 
dominance in America once lost, there were abundant in- 



ROUTINE, 1861-1877 369 

dications that the powers of Europe would have extended 
the scope of their poHtics to our continents; foreign armies 
and navies would have been within striking distance. Amer- 
ica would no longer have escaped that dualism of European 
politics, that tricky balance, in which every domestic con- 
cern of European royalty, every street broil in a European 
capital, becomes a makeweight which, if not instantly ad- 
justed, may upset the whole. Our escape was due to a partly 
unconscious but wholly determined national will which em- 
ployed our armies, our navies, and our statesmen for the 
purpose. Diplomacy was not our savior, but it performed 
its full duty, and those who shaped it deserve eternal 
gratitude. 

Devoted primarily to this great task, the period was not 
barren of routine progress. The most notable advance lay 
in the defining of the relationships of our Progress, 1861 
naturalized citizens to the countries of their *° ^^^"^ 
birth; the most interesting new policy was that of interna- 
tional cooperation in the Pacific. Our various accepted 
policies were adjusted to meet the needs of the time, and 
current matters were kept well in hand. The continual agi- 
tation for expansion resulted in nothing but the addition of 
Alaska, and that was one of the most nearly accidental hap- 
penings of our history. The people were satisfied with their 
territory, and by 1877 the idea had developed that expan- 
sion was contrary to our national policy and our indisposi- 
tion to expand had become almost a passion. 



CHAPTER XXVI 
BAITING THE LION, 1877-1897 

The period between 1877 and 1897 marks the lowest point 
in the conduct of our diplomacy. The long and able services 
Break in con- of Seward and Fish had given dignity and con- 
^^'^^y tinuity to the period from 1861 to 1877, and 

their previous experience in public life had reduced to a 
minimum the deflection from policies previously developed. 
In the new period, administrations of short duration reversed 
each other and paid little attention to the past. There was 
some continuity between the policies of Evarts, secretary 
under Hayes from 1877 to 1881, and those of Blaine, who 
served under Garfield in 1881, though Evarts would not have 
admitted it. Frelinghuysen, coming in under Arthur in 
December, 1881, changed Blaine's policies, only to have his 
own reversed by Bayard, whom Cleveland appointed in 1885. 
Bayard was inclined to conform to the traditions of our his- 
tory, but he was seriously hampered by Congress. Harrison 
brought in Blaine again in 1889, and the two united in dis- 
carding what their predecessors had done, but otherwise for 
the most part pulled different ways, until Blaine resigned in 
1892, to be succeeded by John W. Foster, who was well 
equipped but served too short a time to make himself felt. 
In 1893 Cleveland and his party effectually checked what the 
Republicans had set in train. 

Never before had diplomacy been so much at the mercy 
of politics. In the fifties the attempt was to arouse national 
Politics and interest in general policies; in this period par- 
diplomacy ticular questions of diplomacy were thrown into 
the balance to turn a few votes. Particularly popular was 
the diversion of twisting the tail of the British lion, which 

370 



BAITING THE LION, 1877-1897 371 

animal proved to be peaceable, though not easily led by this 
method to any useful end. 

During these years we did not put into office any really 
great diplomat. The secretaries of state were all excep- 
tionally able men, but the position had become Lack of great 
primarily political. James G. Blaine seems to <i'Pio™ats 
have had some genius for diplomacy, as well as a real pur- 
pose, but his superficiality was so much greater than that of 
Henry Clay, whom he imitated, that comparison is odious. 
His lack of knowledge of international law was conspicuous 
even in his own generation, and the influence of his splendid 
and magnetic personality which might have compensated 
for this defect was lost by the ineptness of his agents, some 
of them forced upon him and some for whom he was himself 
responsible. 

The whole mechanics of diplomatic intercourse had been 
changed by the laying of the Atlantic cable in 1866. This 
was particularly true of our own service. Effect of the 
Owing to distance and the frequent difficulty ^^^^'^ cable 
of communication, our representatives abroad had always 
enjoyed a remarkable degree of freedom and responsibility, 
which they had used to the uttermost, as is illustrated by 
the careers of John Jay and Soule. As Mr. Dooley says of 
our ministers, they "led a free an' riochous life, declared war, 
punched Prime Ministers in th' ey', an' gin'rally misbehaved " 
themselves, "an' no wan at home cared. . . . Be the time 
they knew anything about it it was old news an'" they were 
"up to some other divilment. But now, how is it? Sure 
an Ambassador is about as vallyable as a tillyphone op'rator. 
He has to make connections an' if he listens or cuts in he's 
fired. He's a messenger an' a slow wan fr'm wan Government 
to another." With the concentration of business at the home 
department, the position of foreign representative became 
less attractive to able men with a future. They accepted it 
as a vacation or an honorable retirement, or because of the 
social ambition of their wives. 



372 AMERICAN DIPLOMACY 

With the flooding of Europe by Americans of wealth, bent 
upon pleasure or social advancement, a chief occupation 
Social distrac- of the American ministers became the securing 
*^°° of introductions for their countrymen at the 

courts to which they were accredited. It was in general a 
thankless task, as the absence of fixed social rank in America 
left their selections for the honor to the caprices of their 
own choice; consequently every capital city became the 
fighting-ground of cliques of Americans for and against the 
embassy. Involved in society as they were, such offices 
could be used as stepping-stones to social position at home; 
hence they came to be sought by men of wealth, whose easiest 
method of securing them was by contribution to the party 
campaign funds. Cleveland's appointment to Italy, in 1893 
of James J. Van Alen, who had given fifty thousand dollars 
to the Democratic fund, aroused such a storm of protest 
throughout the country, that he was barely confirmed by the 
Senate, and in decency was forced to decline the position. 
This was not the only case of the kind, however, nor the last. 

The competition of the rich for these posts doubtless had 
something to do with the failure of Congress to raise the sal- 

^. . , aries to meet the increased cost of modern living. 

Rich and poor . , . m i p • i 

and it became ahnost impossible lor a man with- 
out private resources to accept appointment. On the other 
hand, the 6clat of some embassies did not prevent the exigen- 
cies of domestic politics from forcing the appointment of many 
men whose social training was as lacking and more obvious 
than their intellectual deficiencies. 

There were always exceptions however,^ and in partic- 
ular the mission to Great Britain maintained its distinc- 
Mission to tion. With John Adams, Thomas Pinckney, 
Great Britain j^j^^ j.^^^ j^^f^^ j^j^^g j^^^^^^ Monroe, Wil- 
liam Pinkney, John Quincy Adams, Richard Rush, Albert 
Gallatin, Martin Van Buren, Edward Everett, George Ban- 
croft, James Buchanan, Charles Francis Adams, Reverdy 
1 A. D. While, Autobiography, i vols., New York, 1905. 



BAITING THE LION, 1877-1897 373 

Johnson, and John Lothrop Motley among its previous 
holders, the line was continued by James Russell Lowell, 
Edward J. Phelps, Robert Lincoln, and Thomas F. Bayard. 
The loss of diplomatic responsibility was here more than made 
up by the growing sense that the American minister in Eng- 
land was representative of one people to the other; and the 
position was regarded as one of eminence. 

While the importance of the diplomatic service was de- 
clining, that of the consular service was increasing with the 
change of trade conditions. Not only was inter- Commercial 
national exchange assuming larger relative changes 
proportions, but American trade was becoming less special- 
ized. With the development of Argentina, our exports of 
provisions encountered more active competition. In many 
lines of manufacture, moreover, as in leather goods and 
agricultural machinery, the supply was coming to exceed 
the needs of the home market, and a foreign market was 
demanded. The aid of the government was therefore once 
more called in, as it had been in the early days of the republic, 
to assist our commercial interests. This could be done in 
part by national policy, and Blaine and Cleveland proposed, 
the one reciprocity, the other free trade. Much of it, how- 
ever, must be done by the collection and diffusion of informa- 
tion by our consuls, and by their activity in establishing 
friendly relations with foreign business men. 

Although the consular service had grown to cover almost 
every port and shipping point of the world, its selection re- 
mained at the mercy of politics. With the Consular 
adoption of civil service reform in 1883, efforts service 
were made to extend the merit system to this branch; but 
they were unsuccessful. On the whole, however, the results 
were better than might have been expected. The lack of 
special training and experience was not so important here 
as in diplomatic positions, and the politicians who were ap- 
pointed were by profession shrewd and apt at dealing with 
men and clever at picking up information. Although they 



374 AMERICAN DIPLOMACY 

did not particularly command the respect of the educated 

classes of other countries or of their own, and though some 

of them created difficulties that might not otherwise have 

occurred, they were on the whole efficient in promoting 

business.^ 

While no advances in the routine of diplomacy are to be 

looked for, developments already started continued to make 

progress. For one thing, the range of our ex- 
Extradition . . 

tradition treaties was extended. Ihe passage 

of an act by the Canadian Parliament in 1889, authorizing the 

government to surrender fugitives from justice even where no 

treaty existed, seemed to close that haven to our embezzlers. 

Although for certain reasons it failed to be put into operation 

for some time, it appears to have deterred many recreants 

from taking refuge there. With the toils of international 

agreement closing round them, criminal fugitives of all kinds 

continued to furnish much of the business of diplomacy. 

The movement for the protection of trademarks contin- 
ued, and many treaties were made on the subject. More 
Trademarks important was our adhesion, in 1883, to a con- 
and copyright mention for the International Protection of 
Industrial Property, which covered patents, trademarks, 
and commercial names. In 1891 Congress at length au- 
thorized the President to enter into agreements regarding 
international copyright, which he could make valid by proc- 
lamation. This step was speedily followed up, and copyright 
has become practically universal in its extent. 

We also joined, in 1886, in an international agreement 
for the protection of submarine cables, and in 1890 in an 
International international union for the publication of cus- 
cooperation ^^^^ tariffs. Our participation in the latter 
year in an international act for the suppression of the African 
slave trade has already been noticed. This tendency to enter 
freely into agreements with foreign countries on general sub- 
jects was a natural result of the improvement of communica- 
' Consular reports have been published monthly since 1880. 



BAITING THE LION, 1877-1897 375 

tion and the increase of intercourse, conditions which made 
the necessity for mutual understanding greater and more 
apparent. It was in no wise in opposition to our fundamental 
doctrine of avoiding entangling alliances, though a certain 
sensitiveness developed by our isolation caused many Amer- 
icans to feel that such communications might corrupt our 
manners. 

First treaties we made only with Servia in 1881, with 
Corea in 1882, and with Egypt and the new Congo Free State 
in 1884. Claims we followed up with our ac- First treaties 
customed zeal. Our bag was not so large as ^^^ claims 
usual, and proved rather troublesome. It included numerous 
conventions with Hayti beginning ui 1884, and with Vene- 
zuela beginning in 1885. In the case of Portugal, in 1891, 
we joined Great Britain in an arbitration fixing the compen- 
sation which Portugal should pay to each of us as a result of 
her taking possession of the Lourengo Marques railroad. 
The treaty with Ecuador in 1893 concerned only one claim- 
ant, an Ecuadorian naturalized in the United States. The 
convention with Chili in 1892, had almost cost a war before 
it was concluded. A mutual arbitration convention with 
France in 1880 recoiled, giving her a balance of over six hun- 
dred thousand dollars. Our several treaties with Spain, 
and one with Mexico in 1897, produced nothing during this 
period. 

The standard question of the fisheries had seemed to be 
settled by the treaty of Washington, but circumstances 
worked against the permanency of this agree- Treaty of 
ment. The mackerel suddenly changed their and^the ° 
habits, deserting the Canadian waters for our fisheries 
own. In 1882 only one of our vessels took advantage 
of our privileges. The arbitrators under the clause of the 
treaty providing for special compensation to Great Britain, 
of whom the umpire was chosen by Austria, made their esti- 
mates on previous records and ordered us to pay five and a 
half million, or $458,333.33 per year, for our supposed ad- 



376 AMERICAN DIPLOMACY 

vantage. Not unnaturally we did not care to renew this 

bargain when the fixed period of its duration expired.^ 

Congress ordered that notice of the termination of the 

agreement be given and in 1885 it came to an end. There- 

^ ., , upon the Canadian authorities began to make 

Failure to re- ^ . ° 

new red- themselves disagreeable to our deep-sea fish- 

^'^°" ^ ers, who, although they did not need to fish 

within the three-mile limit, were obliged to use Canadian 
harbors. In 1886 the David J. Adams was seized for buying 
bait and ice, and other cases soon followed. The purpose of 
the Canadians was to force a renewal of reciprocity, which 
would allow free entry of their fish into the United States. 
Cleveland was desirous of treating on these terms. In fact, 
the American government had generally favored even more 
extensive reciprocity with Canada, and under Grant had en- 
deavored to bring it about. In 1888 the administration sub- 
mitted a treaty to the Senate on the old basis. American 
fishermen, however, were unwilling to admit equal competi- 
tion, particularly as fishing bounties had been discontinued 
in 1866; and their representatives in the Senate succeeded in 
defeating the treaty. The fishermen's proposal for the pay- 
ment of a lump sum by the nation, on the other hand, was 
opposed by the western interests, which felt that it was 
enough to pay a higher price for their dried cod without 
paying additionally in the way of taxes. Consequently no 
new treaty could be agreed upon, and for many years, the 
fishing industry rested on a modus vivendi agreed to in 1888 
pending the acceptance of Cleveland's treaty. This tem- 
porary agreement was based on the principle of exacting a 
payment of a license fee of a dollar and a half per ton for 
those vessels whose owners wished the freedom of the Cana- 
dian harbors. This method of allowing those who used the 
privileges to pay for them worked satisfactorily, and under 
it the fishery flourished. With the introduction of steamers 
to supply the fleet, the industry became more self-sufiicing, 
* J. B. Henderson, American Diflomatic Questions, New York, etc., 1901. 



BAITING THE LION, 1877-1897 377 

till in 1898, out of 1427 New England schooners, only 79 
took licenses. 

While we were struggling for in-shore and harbor privi- 
leges on the east coast of America, we were assuming a very 
different position in the west. The first fruits The Alaska 
of Alaska were seal skins. In 1870, in order ^^^^ 
to regulate the industry and prevent the extermination of 
the seals, the sole right of killing was granted to the Alaska 
Commercial Company, which was limited to one hundred 
thousand a year. These were to be killed at the breeding 
grounds on the Pribilof islands, and were to be bachelor seals. 
The government royalties seemed destined to pay the pur- 
chase price of the islands. 

The seals, however, had no appreciation of these provisions 
for their own safety. Once a year they took a cruise of 
many months into the Pacific, returning up Destruction of 
the coast of British Columbia. When at home, ^^ ^^^^ ^"<*^ 
moreover, they sported recklessly beyond the three-mile 
limit and the protection of the American flag, thus exposing 
themselves to the unregulated attack of adventurers from 
all the Pacific coasts, but particularly of Canadians. With 
dynamite, undistinguishing between bachelors and mothers 
of families, indiscriminately tearing up many of the valuable 
skins, they laid waste the herds. 

The herds diminished ; whether owing to the annual slaugh- 
ter of one hundred thousand prospective fathers, or to the 

uncounted slaughter of whole families, became . 

A-Sscrtion 
ultimately a burning issue between British and United States 

American scientists. In 1881 the collector of marine juris- 
San Francisco, grieved at the prospect of the g^^° °^^^ 
extermination of another native American race, 
propounded the theory that all of Behring sea, to the line 
of the treaty of 1867 dividing Russian territory from Amer- 
ican, "is considered as comprized within waters of Alaska 
territory." In 1886 the United States revenue cutter Corwin 
seized three British vessels, which were later condemned 



378 AMERICAN DIPLOMACY 

by the United States District Court at Sitka for violating 
American waters. This action the secretary of state, Bayard, 
refused to sustain diplomatically, but seizures continued to 
be made. To meet the actual situation, Bayard wrote to 
France, Germany, Japan, Russia, and Great Britain, asking 
them to cooperate "for the better protection of the fur-seal 
fisheries in Behring Sea." Negotiations ^ went on rapidly 
and a general agreement seemed probable, when, on May 16, 
1888, Lord Salisbury, the British minister of foreign affairs, 
announced that the Canadian government had asked him to 
suspend action. As our Senate had rejected the northeastern 
fishery treaty on May 7, it seems reasonable to suppose that 
this was a counter stroke. 

In March, 1889, Congress, largely through Blaine's in- 
fluence, asserted that Behring sea was under the territorial 

jurisdiction of the United States. This asser- 
Blaine's policy • t-,i • i p i t 

tion Blame undertook to defend. It was op- 
posed to the policy of free navigation of rivers and bays, 
which we had almost consistently pursued from the year of 
Independence, and ran counter to the general current of the 
world's opinion, which we had done much to set in motion. 
Both Great Britain and the United States had protested the 
czar's uJcase of 1821, which had asserted territorial control of 
Behring sea and part of the northern Pacific. Our treaty of 
1867 did indeed run a boundary line through the waters of 
that sea, but this division could not be held binding on other 
nations unless it could be shown that Russia had owned the 
sea. Blaine's argument was based on historical misinforma- 
tion, questionable instances drawn from British practice, 
and the supposed good of humanity. 

After a rather quarrelsome negotiation, a modus vivendi 
was arranged in January, 1891, forbidding all killing of 

seals, except seven thousand five hundred for 
Arbitration . 

the sustenance oi the natives. I^ebruary 29, 

1892, an arbitration treaty was signed. The commission 

created was to take up the whole question, historical, legal. 



BAITING THE LION, 1877-1897 379 

and economic. If it decided that the United States had no 
exclusive right to the sea, we were to pay damages for the 
seizure of British vessels. In this case also the commission 
was to decide upon measures suitable for the preservation of 
the seals. The arbitration tribunal was a dignified body of 
seven members. It met at Paris, and the American case was 
presented by Edward J. Phelps, Frederic R. Coudert, and 
Henry Cabot Lodge. 

The issue narrowed down to the meaning of "Pacific 
ocean" in the treaties of the United States and Great Britain 
with Russia in 1824 and 1825. Our claim that The decision 
Behring sea was by nature mare clausum was ^^^ ^*^ ®^®'^* 
given up. Stress was also laid upon the common-law pro- 
tection for domestic animals when beyond their owner's 
land; but Lord Salisbury's argument that seals were fercB 
natures, and so res nullius, seems to have been nearer the 
fact. The decision was not unnaturally against us, and we 
finally, though reluctantly and not until 1898, paid about 
half a million dollars' damages. The protective regulations, 
providing for a closed season, no killing at sea within sixty 
miles of the Pribilof islands, no use of steamers or of explo- 
sives, and special licenses and flags for the vessels engaged, 
proved ineffective. Great Britain and the United States 
disagreed as to the changes necessary to make them so, and 
other nations were not bound by even the existing regula- 
tions. During this period, therefore, diplomacy failed to 
protect the seal herds. Our attempt to sacrifice a cherished 
principle to obtain this end had succeeded with regard to 
neither the end nor the principle. Although agreement had 
in 1888 halted because of the dispute concerning the fisheries 
on the opposite coast, it seems probable that the note of 
bombast introduced by Blaine, and the national antagonisms 
thus aroused, were the weightiest causes of final failure. 

In 1878 Lieutenant Wyse received a concession from the 
government of Colombia, formerly New Granada, for a 
French company that desired to build an interoceanic canal 



380 AMERICAN DIPLOMACY 

across the isthmus of Panama. Ferdinand de Lesseps, 

director of the Suez canal, was put at the head of the new 

company, and the scheme was launched with 
French con- ^ • t ,^^^ • -n 

cession at eiiusion. In 1879 a scientinc congress was 

anama assembled at Paris to discuss the engineering 

problems involved, and the United States government was 
represented by two distinguished naval officers. Our interest 
in the canal problem, long dormant, suddenly revived, the 
most effective spur being De Lesseps's suggestion, in 1879, 
of a joint international guarantee of neutrality.^ 

March 8, 1880, President Hayes announced in a message to 
Congress: "The policy of this country is a canal under 
American control. The United States cannot 
consent to the surrender of this control to 
any European power or to any combination of European 
powers. . . . An interoceanic canal across the American 
Isthmus will essentially change the geographical relations 
between the Atlantic and Pacific coasts of the United 
States. ... It would be the great ocean thoroughfare be- 
tween our Atlantic and our Pacific shores, and virtually a 
I)art of the coast line of the United States. . . . No other 
power would under similar circumstances fail to assert a 
rightful control over a work so closely and vitally affecting 
its interest and welfare." Evarts proposed to Colombia that 
all cessions be considered as subject to the treaty of 1846, and 
that we have the right to erect fortifications at the mouths of 
the canal. 

This certainly had not hitherto been the policy of the 

United States, who has always asserted the general principle 

of universal freedom of use, analogous to our 

idea of the freedom of international waters and 

of a joint international guarantee. It was, however, endorsed 

in 1880 by Congress, which based it on the Monroe Doctrine, 

' Freeman Snow, Treaties and Topics in American Diplomacy (Boston, 
1894), 337-347; T. J. Lawrence, Esmijs on some Disputed Questions in Modem 
International Law (Cambridge, Eng., 1884), Nos. ii-iii. 



BAITING THE LION, 1877-1897 381 

and was joyously taken up by Blaine in 1881. He announced 
to our representatives in Europe that it was "nothing more 
than the pronounced adherence of the United States to prin- 
ciples long since enunciated." Our guarantee, he maintained, 
needed no "reinforcement, or accession, or assent from any 
other power; " a pledge that during a war in which either 
the United States or Colombia was engaged hostile military 
forces should be permitted to pass through the canal was "no 
more admissible than on the railroad lines joining the At- 
lantic and Pacific shores of the United States"; we should 
object to any concert of European powers for guaranteeing 
the canal. 

The last two positions at least were in direct contravention 
to the Clayton-Bulwer treaty, which seems to have escaped 
Blaine's attention. On November 1, however, Blaine's case 
he took it up. That treaty, he said, was more cfayton-Buf- 
than thirty years old; it was for the special wer treaty 
purpose of facilitating the construction of a canal which 
had never materialized; conditions had now changed with 
the development of our Pacific slope; by forbidding the 
fortification of the canal, we practically gave it to Great 
Britain, as she could control it with her fleet; the treaty 
was not consistent with "our right and long established 
claim to priority on the American continent;" the entrance 
of France had changed the situation; finally, we wished to 
fortify the canal, and, in company with the country in which 
it was located, to control it. Frelinghuysen, on becoming 
secretary, added that the English occupation of British 
Honduras constituted a violation of the treaty, and repeated 
that "a protectorate by European nations" would be a 
violation of the Monroe Doctrine, which we had declared 
"at the suggestion of the oflacial representative of Great 
Britain." 

It must have been a joy to the British foreign office to 
answer such dispatches as these, of which it received so many 
during this period. Lord Granville replied in a series of 



382 AMERICAN DIPLOMACY 

notes. He pointed out that the Clayton-Bulwer treaty was 
not a special contract, that it distinctly stated, indeed, 

that its purpose was to declare a general policy, 
the Clayton- The United States, he was able to show, 

had specifically agreed that British Honduras 
should not be considered a part of Central America. He 
remarked that the Monroe Doctrine had not prevented the 
formation of the treaty; and he might have added that 
Canning, so far from urging its declaration, had immediately 
upon its announcement set about to defeat it. He called 
attention to the development of the Pacific slope in Canada 
as well as in the United States, and in one note Lord Salis- 
bury added that the building of the transcontinental rail- 
roads had actually decreased our special interest in the canal. 
With regard to the age of the treaty, thirty years probably 
seemed less in England than in America. Lord Granville 
might also have referred to Seward's instructions to Adams 
in 1866 when we were seeking a naval station at Tiger 
island in Honduras, suggesting that, although the treaty 
was really out of date, yet, so long as its binding force 
"should remain a question, it would not comport with 
good faith for either party to do anything which might 
be deemed contrary" even "to its spirit." He might 
have shown, too, that Fish in 1872, and Evarts in 1880, 
had recognized its existence. The discussion closed with- 
out result. 

Meanwhile we did not confine ourselves to argument. 
We proposed to construct a rival canal on the Nicaraguan 
Nicaragua route. In December, 1884, Frelinghuysen 

P^^ negotiated a treaty with that country, providing 

that such a canal be built under United States auspices and 
practically under her control. This treaty was withdrawn 
by Cleveland, who reverted to our traditional policy of a 
canal internationally guaranteed, Such a highway, he said, 
"must be for the world's benefit, a trust for mankind, to be 
removed from the chance of domination by any single power. 



BAITING THE LION, 1877-1897 383 

nor become a point of invitation for hostilities or a prize 
for warlike ambitions." 

Had Cleveland shared the desire of his Republican pred- 
ecessors to find the Clayton-Bulwer treaty void, he might 
have attacked it during his second administra- The Mosqui- 
tion on better grounds than Blaine found. *°®^ 
The irritating question of the Mosquitoes seemed to have 
been settled in 1860 by a treaty between Great Britain and 
Nicaragua. With the revival of interest in the mouth of 
the San Juan river, however, adventurers among the tribe 
began to scent the possibility of profit in emphasizing the 
semi-independence which that treaty, as interpreted by an 
arbitrating decision of the emperor of Austria in 1881, gave 
them. Nicaragua, unwilling to allow interference with the 
bargain which she seemed to be driving with the United 
States, asserted her authority, whereupon the Mosquitoes 
called in Great Britain, who answered the call. In spite of 
protests from the United States, British marines were 
landed at Bluefields in 1894. Complicated as were the legal 
arguments in the case, there seems to be no doubt that this 
interference on the part of Great Britain was in violation of 
the spirit of the treaty which she was trying to uphold. In 
fact the point was apparently appreciated by her govern- 
ment; the marines were withdrawn, and in 1895 the matter 
was temporarily settled, but not beyond the possibility of 
revival, by the submission of the Mosquitoes to Nicaragua. 

The agitation over the canal question did not, during 

this period, accomplish any definite result. The canal was 

not built, the Clayton-Bulwer treaty remained, „ 

1 1 TT • 1 r^ , „ . , No progress 

and the United States had not even denmtely 

changed its mind. 



CHAPTER XXVII 

BLAINE, OLNEY, AND THE MONROE DOCTRINE ' 

The development of our policy toward Spanish America 

during this period was, to 1892, almost entirely the work 

of Blaine, whose handling of this subject 
Intervention , ° • iVii 

in America to was comprehensive and constructive. Ihe 

negative influence of the Monroe Doctrine 
in preserving the territorial integrity and independence of 
the free nations of our continents had undoubtedly been 
great, but the hope of Adams and Clay for a sympathetic 
union with them, accompanied by a leadership on our part, 
had not been realized. Great Britain had won and held the 
import trade, her rivals being France, Spain, and to an in- 
creasing extent Germany. The United States actually lost 
ground between 1860 and 1880, although she consumed 
more and more Brazilian coffee. The immigration of Ger- 
mans into Brazil and of Italians into Argentina was laying 
a more substantial basis for influence than any we possessed. 
The first part of Blaine's policy was developed under 
Garfield. He planned to have the United States assume the 

»» J- X- V position of sole mediator in the disputes con- 
Mediation be- ... . 

tween Europe tinually arising between the several American 

powers, and between them and European 

powers. On this subject we had not previously taken a 

definite stand. In 1851 we had joined with France and Great 

Britain in mediating between Hayti and the Dominican 

Republic; and sometimes our representatives had acted in a 

mediating capacity, but more often those of France or Great 

Britain had done so. 

Blaine's first opportunity appeared in the dispute between 

' Latane, Diplomatic Relations of the United States and Spanish America. 

384 



BLAINE, OLNEY; MONROE DOCTRINE 385 

France and Venezuela. The former country had claims 
against the latter, and proposed to seize the customs houses 
and collect the sum due, a proceeding by no means unusual. 
To prevent this desecration of American soil by French 
marines, Blaine vigorously urged Venezuela to acknowledge 
the French claim, and suggested that the money be paid to 
our agent at Caracas; if it were not paid within three 
months, he threatened, the United States herself would 
seize the customs houses and collect the money. This pro- 
posal to act as collecting agent came to nothing at the time, 
for Frelinghuysen did not continue the policy; as foreshadow- 
ing a course of action later much discussed and sometimes 
followed out, it is, however, important.^ 

With regard to disputes between American powers Blaine 
did not claim exclusive authority. June 25, 1881, he wrote to 
Fairchild, minister in Spain, protesting against objection to 

the proposal to submit to Spain the arbitration European 

All- 1 ^ mediation be- 

of the boundary between Colombia and Costa tween Amer- 

Rica. He based his protest on the fact that, ' ° powers 
since in the treaty of 1846 we had guaranteed Panama 
to Colombia, we should have been consulted. In using 
this special ground, he obviously refrained from deny- 
ing the right of Spanish-American states to ask European 
states to serve in such a capacity under ordinary circum- 
stances or that of European states to accept the invitation. 
He planned, however, to make such recourse unnecessary 
by having the United States serve as a permanent and im- 
partial umpire. Already in 1880 Colombia and united states 
Chili had agreed to make the president of the *^ ^^^^^ ^*^*^'" 
United States a permanent arbitrator between them. In 
1881 the settlement of a dispute between Chili and Argentina 
is said to have been "due to the unremitting efforts of the 
representatives of the United States in both countries." 
In 1881 Mexico and Guatemala having a boundary dispute, 
the latter applied to us as the "natural protector of the 
^ Edward Stanwood, James Gillespie Blaine, Boston, etc., 1905. 



386 AMERICAN DIPLOMACY 

Central American territory." Blaine ofiFered to arbitrate. 
He told Mexico that we were satisfied with our own territory 
and that she should be content with what was justly hers; 
that he should consider any hostile movement by Mexico 
against Guatemala as "not in harmony with the friendly 
relations existing between us, and injurious to the best in- 
terests of all the republics of this continent. This country," 
he declared, "will continue its policy of peace even if it can- 
not have the great aid which the cooperation of Mexico would 
assure; and it will hope at no distant day to see such concord 
and cooperation between all the nations of America as will 
render war impossible." 

His greatest chance came in the war raging between Chili 
and Peru and Bolivia for the possession of the nitrate mines 
situated near the junction of their national 
Bolivia-Chili boundaries. Evarts had already offered media- 
tion and protested against European inter- 
vention. Blaine emphasized both points. He informed 
France that the American republics were our younger sisters, 
removed from the European system. To Chili and Peru he 
sent messengers of peace. They were not, however, well 
chosen, for each became the partisan of the country to which 
he was sent. Blaine, deeply in earnest, at length sent a 
competent man, William H. Trescott of South Carolina, 
whose diplomatic experience dated back to 1852 and whose 
skill and scholarship were everywhere acknowledged. He 
was instructed to warn Chili against making excessive de- 
mands as a result of her victories, and to suggest that, if 
she did, we would secure the cooperation of other American 
powers to coerce her into reasonableness. 

These instructions are to be taken in connection with 
the second great principle upon which Blaine was acting, 
Pan-American that of Pan- Americanism. November 29, 1881, 
arbitration ^le invited all the independent nations of 

America to meet for a discussion of arbitration. They were 
not, to be sure, to take up "exciting" questions, but were to 



BLAINE, OLNEY; MONROE DOCTRINE 387 

inaugurate an era of peace in America for the future, and 
the emanation of their good will might serve to assuage 
present passions based on past lawlessness. This opportunity 
was lost. Frelinghuysen feared that this meeting of a "par- 
tial group of our friends" might offend Europe; accordingly, 
although many nations accepted the invitation, he indefinitely 
postponed the conference, and he discourteously recalled 
Trescott. 

Blaine employed the leisure between his two terms of oflSce 
in preparing the public mind to support his Pan-American 
plans on a basis even broader than he had Blaine's influ- 
suggested in 1881. In 1882 he wrote The ^essandpX 
Foreign Policy of the Garfield Administra- ^^'^ opinion 
tion. He secured the passage by Congress of an amend- 
ment to the consular bill of 1884, providing for a commission 
of three to obtain information as to the advisability of a 
Pan-American Congress. Charlatan and genius, he sought 
to recommend his plan of peace and cooperation in America 
by a persistent baiting of Europe, He fostered the dispute 
with Great Britain concerning the fisheries and Behring sea; 
he became discredited among the intellectual class at home 
as a jingo; and when he returned to office the Spanish min- 
ister of foreign affairs moved an increase in the West Indian 
fleet. 

Nevertheless he made progress. Congress had already, 

in 1888, passed a bill calling a Pan-American Congress, 

which Cleveland allowed to become a law ,, „ , . ^ 

Call for first 

without his signature. It was to discuss not Pan-American 
arbitration alone, but customs union, weights 
and measures, copyright, trademarks and patents, communi- 
cations, common coinage, and indeed anything that seemed 
suitable. Europe scoffed, and Spanish America was not en- 
thusiastic. The president of Chili told his congress that he 
had accepted "out of polite regard for a friendly govern- 
ment." Senor Romero, the veteran Mexican minister at 
Washington, said that there was a general fear that its object 



388 AMERICAN DIPLOMACY 

was "to secure the political and commercial ascendency of 
the United States on this continent." ^ 

The congress was well attended and ably managed by 
Blaine, who was elected its president. Nothing could be 
Meeting of the done on the subject of arbitration ; but uniform 
Congress sanitary regulations were drawn up, the survey 

of an intercontinental railroad was arranged, the principle of 
the free navigation of international rivers was endorsed, and 
agreements, not quite universal, were made concerning trade- 
marks, patents, and extradition. The formation of reciproc- 
ity treaties between the several nations was recommended. 
One thing of real importance was accomplished, — the founda- 
tion of the Bureau of the American Republics, located at 
Washington, supported jointly by the nations concerned, 
and charged with the collection of information. Actually 
permanent, its functions grew till it became a lasting, though 
not a strong, element of union. ^ 

The vitality of the whole scheme rested on the develop- 
ment of commercial relations, a process that Blaine sought 

^ to stimulate by treaties of reciprocity. Such 

Reciprocity • i i i i • i • -.no^ ^ e 

treaties had been authorized in 1884, and a lew 

were drawn up under Arthur, but they were withdrawn by 
Cleveland. In 1890 the Republican majority in Congress was 
working over the McKinley tariff bill. In tliis document 
sugar, coffee, hides, and other such commodities, our most im- 
portant assets for international customs bartering, were put 
on the free list. If the bill passed in this form, therefore, we 
should have no favors to offer American countries. Blaine 
threw himself into opposition. July 11, 1890, he wrote to 
Senator Frye, "There is not a section or a line in the entire 
bill that will open a market for another bushel of [American] 
wheat or another barrel of pork." His position was supported 
by western sentiment, and Senator Hale of Maine offered an 

' Romero, M. "The Pan-American Conference," North American Review, 
1890. cli. 3.54-3G7, 407-421. 

^ Bureau of th<; American Republics, Bulletins, 1891, etc. 



BLAINE, OLNEY; MONROE DOCTRINE 389 

amendment representing his views. His plan provided for 
a duty on the commodities in question, but empowered the 
President "to declare the ports of the United States free and 
open to all products of any nation of the American hemi- 
sphere upon which no export duties are imposed, whenever 
and so long as such nation shall admit to its ports, free of all " 
duties of whatsoever nature, certain enumerated products 
of the United States, or such other products as might be 
agreed upon. This amendment was not passed, but in sub- 
stitution for it one proposed by Senator Aldrich was adopted, 
which left the enumerated articles on the free list, but au- 
thorized the President, when in his judgment the duties 
imposed on the agricultural and other products of the United 
States by nations producing the enumerated articles were 
"reciprocally unequal and unjust," to declare in force a pre- 
scribed list of duties.^ 

This rule, being applicable to all the world, deprived 
Blaine of his weapon for specially cementing together the 
nations of America. Nevertheless he went Reciprocity in 
to work actively to use it to open markets for operation 
American exports, and his efforts were continued by his 
successor, Foster, with the result that agreements were en- 
tered into with Brazil, Spain (for Cuba and Porto Rico), 
Austria, Nicaragua, Honduras, and with France for herself 
and her colonies. Colombia, Hayti, Venezuela, and Spain 
with reference to the Philippines, were informed that unless 
certain specified duties were removed by March 15, 1892, 
the President would enforce the duties provided by the act. 
In 1894, before it was possible to determine what efiFect this 
policy was to have on our trade, the Democratic Wilson tariff 
was enacted, and Cleveland's first secretary of state in his 
new term, Gresham, informed the countries concerned 
that the duration of these agreements depended on the dura- 
tion of the act, and were therefore void. 

^ F. W. Taussig, "Reciprocity," Quarterly Journal of Economics, ii. 314- 
346 (1893), vii. 26-39. 



390 AMERICAN DIPLOMACY 

The great tragedy of Blaine's ambition, however, resulted 
from the civil war in Chili. In that contest we had not 
The Chili em- taken part, but once more our minister had 
brogiio been ill selected to represent us at so critical 

a point. His name being Patrick Egan, he sympathized with 
the anti-English party, and was sufficiently demonstrative 
to have stirred up decided feeling among its victorious op- 
ponents. This feeling had been increased by our over strict 
interpretation of our neutral duties in seizing the Itata, a 
vessel carrying arms to the successful party. It happened 
that under these circumstances, on October 16, 1891, some 
sailors from our cruiser Baltimore, who went ashore at Val- 
paraiso, were assaulted, one officer was killed, and seven 
seamen were wounded. Blaine and Harrison were both being 
talked of for the next Republican nomination. The latter 
insisted upon dealing with the matter with a high hand in 
order to win votes, particularly the Irish ones. Blaine could 
not be left behind, and a blustering policy was adopted, with 
primary reference to the effect that the episode would have 
at home. For a time war seemed imminent; diplomatic 
relations were suspended and an ultimatum dispatched. 
Chili grudgingly yielded, but the suspicions with which the 
Spanish-American states had regarded Blaine were confirmed, 
and the memory of his pleasing personality and eloquent ap- 
peals for kindliness and cooperation vanished. 

Although Blaine seemed to make little impression on the 
solid opinion of his time, some of his policies have proved 
_. . , to be permanently American. The idea of 

strength and United States control of the canal, which was 

W6fl.kll6SS 

not original with him but which he made his 
own, returned later, and apparently to stay. So, too, the 
conception of the United States as an intermediary between 
American and European nations is incorporated in our 
statute books in the case of San Domingo. He was among 
the first of our public men to observe the changing conditions 
of our commerce. That with this ability he should have com- 



BLAINE, OLNEY; MONROE DOCTRINE 391 

bined the arts of the blatant hawker after votes, thereby 
uselessly aggravating the powers of Europe; that, with 
the splendid scope of his plan of international cooperation 
in America, he should in the eighties have imagined that the 
two hemispheres could be divided, not in political ideals 
as Adams in the twenties has said they were, but commer- 
cially, were evidences of a power of intuitive perception un- 
accompanied either by comprehensive knowledge or by a 
capacity for thinking things through. 

Richard Olney, who formulated President Cleveland's 
conception of the Monroe Doctrine, was Blaine's opposite 
in every respect. Clear-cut and logical, he The Vene- 
thought his problem through to the bitter end, ^"^'* question 
and did not have the imagination to see that the end was 
bitter. The occasion for the declaration of the Olney doc- 
trine arose out of a dispute between Great Britain and 
Venezuela. It was a question of boundary, and ran back 
to the demarcation line of Alexander VI. More particu- 
larly, the situation was that the Spaniards had settled on 
the Orinoco, the Dutch on the Esequibo, without ever de- 
termining the line between them. In 1814 the Dutch had 
ceded western Guiana to the British, and a little later the 
Spanish settlements had declared their independence as 
Venezuela. 

Both Great Britain and Venezuela had extended their 
claims to the uttermost, the former to the mouth of the 
Orinoco, the latter to the mouth of the Ese- Rise of the 
quibo; from 1841 they had been at controversy, controversy 
Of the two, Venezuela, fearing Great Britain, was the more 
anxious for a fixed line. In 1876 she appealed to us, as "the 
most powerful and oldest of the Republics of the new con- 
tinent," to lend to the others our "powerful moral support 
in disputes with European nations." Evarts, Frelinghuysen, 
and Bayard all expressed their interest. Blaine was collect- 
ing material on the subject in 1881, and probably would have 
taken some action had he continued in office. In 1890 he 



392 AMERICAN DIPLOMACY 

instructed Lincoln to proffer our good offices and to suggest 
an informal conference of the three countries. 

Meantime the question had become acute, owing to the 
discovery of gold in the region in dispute and the probabil- 
Cleveiand and ity of actual occupation. Cleveland therefore 
Venezuela proposed to handle it with vigor. He referred 

to it in his message of 1894, expressing his hope for arbitra- 
tion, and Congress recommended such action to both parties. 
England refused, as she had in the case of Lincoln's sugges- 
tion, to submit the whole question, but she would arbitrate 
within fixed limits. It was at this point that Secretary 
Gresham died and Olney took office. It was not, however, 
as a result of Gresham's death that the United States policy 
showed that sudden acceleration which became a nine days' 
wonder for the whole world; the change had already been 
determined upon by Cleveland. He believed that, in ac- 
cordance with the non-colonization pronouncement of Mon- 
roe, the boundaries of foreign colonies in America had be- 
come fixed, that they were determinable by judicial process, 
and must be so determined lest in a contest between a strong 
European nation and a weak American one the line might be 
pushed back and the area of freedom curtailed. To insist 
upon such a judicial settlement was, he urged, our duty and 
privilege. 

June 20, 1895, Olney sent his dispatch setting forth these 
views. To the more usual phrases of the Monroe Doctrine 
The Olney he added, "That distance and three thousand 
doctrine miles of intervening ocean make any permanent 

political union between a European and an American state 
unnatural and inexpedient will hardly be denied." Not 
content with thus proclaiming the ultimate extinction of 
European colonial possessions, he announced with reference 
to the present, "Today the United States is practically sover- 
eign on this continent, and its fiat is law upon the subjects 
to which it confines its interposition." Great Britain, he 
declared, could not be considered as a South American power; 



BLAINE, OLNEY; MONROE DOCTRINE 393 

if she advanced her frontier, she would be acting contrary 
to the Monroe Doctrine. In order that we might know that 
no such extension was taking place, full arbitration was neces- 
sary. The President, he said, must be informed of her policy 
before the next meeting of Congress; "if he is disappointed 
in that hope" the result will be "calculated to greatly em- 
barrass the future relations between this country and Great 
Britain." 

Lord Salisbury in a long dispatch controverted these 
statements, and refused to admit the intervention of the 
United States between Great Britain and Vene- Cleveland and 
zuela. In a special message of December 17, ^^^^^ Britain 
1895, Cleveland dealt with the matter in a manner similar 
to that which Polk had made use of in connection with Ore- 
gon, but more vigorously. He recommended that we ap- 
point a commission of our own to investigate the facts. If 
its report should show that Great Britain was extending her 
territory, nothing would remain but to accept the situation, 
to recognize its plain requirements, and to deal with it ac- 
cordingly. 

War spirit ran high, but it is only fair to President Cleve- 
land to say that he was throughout probably conscious of 
the irresistible weight of the forces making for The settle- 
peace between Great Britain and the United ™®°* 
States. He was not bluffing, for he was prepared to meet the 
call; but he did not expect to be called. Like Polk, he was 
"looking England in the eye." Venezuela prepared her case 
for the benefit of our commission, and Great Britain brought 
out a timely parliamentary Blue Book, which answered the 
same purpose. February 27, 1896, Sir Julian Pauncefote, 
who long and ably represented Great Britain at Washington, 
was empowered to discuss the question. In order to avoid 
yielding, Lord Salisbury suggested a general arbitration 
tribunal to adjust all questions between us; but this was re- 
fused. After a year of negotiation, February 2, 1897, an 
arbitration between Great Britain and Venezuela was ar- 



394 AMERICAN DIPLOIVIACY 

ranged. Although to a degree Great Britain's action in 
treating of the matter with us constituted an acknowledg- 
ment of our special position on the continent, she did not 
formally recognize it, and she did not conclude without 
having forced a compromise, — namely, that the arbitrators 
were to act on the rule that adverse possession for fifty years 
should make good title, a limitation upon which she had long 
insisted. The tribunal met at Paris in 1899, and was dis- 
tinguished by the presence of Ex-President Harrison as 
counsel for Venezuela. The result was largely favorable to 
Great Britain, but it gave Venezuela control of the mouth 
of the Orinoco. A dispute between Great Britain and Brazil 
concerning the southern boundary of Guiana was in 1901 
submitted to arbitration without controversy.^ 

As an exposition of the Monroe Doctrine, Olney's dispatch 
pushed interpretation to an extreme. It was as much an 

„, . . extension of the original intention as was 

Blaine and , . ° 

oiney com- Blaine's. If Blaine could see nothing but 

America, Olney could see nothing but the 

United States. If his statement that colonies in America 

were but transitory was provocative to Europe, his assertion 

that the fiat of the United States was law upon this continent 

was equally provocative to other American powers. They 

could not grasp its consistency with Cleveland's statement 

that the Monroe Doctrine found "its recognition in those 

principles of international law which are based upon the 

theory that every nation shall have its rights protected and 

its just claims enforced." They considered our assertion of 

authority in connection with what they believed to be our 

designs. The really harmless statement of President Hayes, 

that an isthmian canal would be part of the coast line of the 

United States, they regarded as a threat to all countries 

* Henderson, American Diplomatic Questions, 411-443; Grover Cleveland, 
Presidential Problems, New York, 1904; Richard Olney, "International 
Isolation of the United States," Atlantic Monthly, 1898, Ixxxi. 577-588; 
Hiram Bingham, The Monroe Doctrine an Obsolete Shibboleth, New Haven, 
1913. 



BLAINE, OLNEY; MONROE DOCTRINE 395 

between us and it. Our protection of Venezuela, therefore, 
failed to increase our popularity in America. In this respect 
Olney seems to have been guilty of an ignorance which 
Blaine avoided. His remark that "the states of America, 
South as well as North, by geographical proximity, by nat- 
ural sympathy, by similarity of governmental constitutions, 
are friends and aUies, commercially and politically, of the 
United States," could scarcely have compressed more errors 
into fewer words. It contrasts with Blaine's effort to make 
precisely those hopes, facts. 



CHAPTER XXVIII 

GROWTH OF AMERICAN INFLUENCE IN THE 
PACIFIC 

While both political parties were doing their best to 

deepen the Atlantic, and the careless words of so many of 

our statesmen were preventing any diplomatic 
Amencan in- . , o • i * • • n 

fluence in the understandmg with bpanish America, our innu- 

ence in the Pacific, unbacked by policy and 

largely unnoticed, was rapidly extending. Foremost among 

the pioneers were the missionaries, who were carrying their 

ministrations to every coral isle and penetrating the vast 

bulk of China, to whose awakening they were ultimately to 

contribute so much. In China their ministry was distinctly 

recognized by the treaties of 1858 and 1868, and everywhere, 

as American citizens, they carried the protection of our 

name and extended the duties of our diplomacy. The whaler 

had become a less customary visitant in the Pacific, but the 

trade was not entirely dead. Regular commerce with the 

East was not relatively so important as in the first part of 

the century, but absolutely it was growing and demanded 

the constant attention of our state department and our 

representatives abroad.^ 

In Japan we took a benevolent interest. In returning to 

her in 1883 our portion of the Shimonoseki indemnity, we 

^ J. M. Callahan, American Relations in the Pacific and the Far East, 1784- 

1900, Johns Hopkins University, Studies in Historical and Political Science, 

1901, xix. Nos. 1-3; J. W. Foster, American Diflomacy in the Orient, Boston, 
etc., 1903; W. E. Griffis, America in the East, a Glance at our History, Pros- 
pects, Problems, and Duties in the Pacific Ocean, New York, 1899; A. T. 
Mahan, The Problem of Asia and its Effect upon International Policies, 
Boston, 1900; A. R. Colquhonn, The Mastery of the Pacific, New York, etc., 
1902; E. E. Sparks, National Development, 1S77-1SS5 {Ainerican Nation, 
vol. xxiii.), chs. xiii-xiv. All these were written after the Spanish war. 

390 



OUR INFLUENCE IN THE PACIFIC 397 

performed an unusual act of international courtesy. With 
Japan's desire for commercial autonomy we exhibited sym- 
pathy, which was checked, however, by our in- 

• 1 • c 11 Japan 

ternational convention of 1866, and by our sus- 
picion as to her readiness for the judicial autonomy for which 
she was equally desirous. In 1878 we concluded a commer- 
cial treaty with her, surrendering our tariflf rights; but, as it 
was not to go into effect until the other treaty powers had 
similarly surrendered theirs, it served merely as an expression 
of our good will. We finally left it for Great Britain to be 
the first absolutely to recognize the accomplished modernity 
of the empire in 1894, but we followed with a treaty of the 
same year. Our general relations continued to be of special 
friendliness.^ 

With China there was much the same spirit, but just as 
our territorial acquisitiveness, actual or suspected, has always 
prevented that sympathy for which we have Chinese im- 
hoped in America, so the vase of our friendship °"eration 
with the Far East began to show a flaw. As subjects for mis- 
sionary effort, and as honest merchants with whom to deal, 
we respected the Chinese while we condescended to them. 
As competitive laborers in our country we both disliked and 
feared them. Concentrated as it was on the Pacific coast, 
this sentiment had the advantage of being the dominant po- 
litical issue there. The electoral vote of California began to 
veer with the attitude of parties on this question, and by 1880 
the Californian position became the embodied national will. 

In 1879 Congress passed a bill excluding the Chinese, but, 
as this action was in contradiction to the Burlingame treaty. 
President Hayes vetoed it. To accomplish Chinese ex- 
the same end by diplomacy he sent a special elusion 
commission. Following the precedent of calling upon the 
best talent in the country to deal with such emergencies, 
instead of relying on our regular diplomatic staff, he selected 

• W. E. Griffis, Tawnsend Harris, First American Envoy in Japan, Boston, 
etc., 1895. 



398 AMERICAN DIPLOMACY 

President James B. Angell of the University of Michigan, 
and Trescott, with John F. Smith to represent Cahfornia. 
They succeeded in obtaining a treaty permitting us to limit 
or suspend, though not absolutely to prohibit, the immigra- 
tion of laborers. In accordance with this treaty we passed 
an exclusion act in 1882, 

Successfully evading the law, however, the Chinese con- 
tinued to come. More vigorous measures being necessary 
Treaty of 1894 to carry out our purpose, we again nego- 
with China ^j^^gj jj^ 2888, and in spite of the failure of the 

treaty passed a new and more effective act in that year. 
Other laws followed, the most important being the Geary 
act of 1892, requiring the registration of all Chinese in this 
country. The question as to the return, after leaving the 
country, of those once resident here added to the diplomatic 
difficulty of the situation. At length in 1894 a new treaty 
was signed prohibiting by its own terms the immigration 
of Chinese laborers for ten years. "Officials, teachers, stu- 
dents, merchants, or travellers for curiosity or pleasure" 
were exempted, but they must carry certificates. This took 
the question through the period, but our success was not 
without the loss of some regard. 

Our interest in the Pacific, however, was not confined to 
our relations with other nations resident upon it: we were 
T t ai becoming one of the most important resident 

pansion on the nations ourselves. The definite acquisition of 
Oregon with Puget Sound in 1846, and of 
California with the bay of San Francisco in 1848, gave us the 
best commercial coast line on its western shores, and the 
annexation of Alaska in 1867 stretched a finger round toward 
Asia.^ 

From time to time the American flag was raised over a 
number of the Pacific islands. In 1812 Commodore Porter, 
cruising in the Pacific, named and annexed Madison island; 

1 F. H. Skrine, The Expansion of Russia, 1S15-1900, Cambridge, Eng., 
1903. 



OUR INFLUENCE IN THE PACIFIC 399 

but name and flag alike soon vanished from it. Ephemeral 
national occupation was taken from time to time of guano 
islands. By a succession of United States laws The Pacific 
the President was authorized, after proper for- islands 
malities, to maintain these as national possessions while the 
guano was being extracted, but without incurring any obliga- 
tion of perpetual possession. Although some of them were 
situated in the Caribbean and elsewhere, the majority were 
in the Pacific; in the eighties over fifty were reported as 
claimed by Americans in that ocean. The hold of the United 
States in such cases was not only temporary but slight; still 
conflicting claims of persons and nations, and complaints 
as to conditions on them, demanded constant attention by 
the department of state. The occupation of the appropriately 
named Midway island by the navy in 1887 has been held to 
have brought it permanently within our sovereignty. 

More important was our connection with the inhabited 
islands, the first general interest being excited by the island 

kingdom of Samoa. This earthly paradise, „ 

1 • 1 r. 1 1 , 1 P Samoa 

which Stevenson has made the home oi ro- 
mance and faery, was the scene of diverting wars between the 
natives and of Gilbertian intrigues between the American, 
German, and English consuls. Like the "three kings of 
Chickeraboo," they smoked at Apia, the capital, and 
dreamed of circumventing their rivals. Three hundred 
foreigners, mostly of the beach-combing variety, divided the 
trade of the islands. That of the United States and Great 
Britain had ceased to grow, but the Deutsche Handels-und 
Plantagengesell-schaft fiir Siidseeinseln zu Hamburg was ex- 
tending its sales and taking in payment therefor land titles 
of the significance of which the natives had as little idea as 
the American Indians had had of theirs. The tendency, 
therefore, was for the American and English consuls to co- 
operate against the German.^ 

^ R. L. Stevenson, A Footnote to History: Eight Years of Trouble in Samoa, 
New York, 1892. 



400 AMERICAN DIPLOMACY 

In 1872 one of our naval officers secured an agreement 
with a local chieftain giving us harbor privileges. In 1875 
a German agent named Steinberger obtained a commis- 
sion of inquiry from the United States government, and 
o fir t di 1 with this as authority attempted to set up 
matic relations a government under our protection; but our 
consul secured his deportation. In 1878 we 
made a treaty with the kingdom. This gave us the right 
to use the harbor of Pagopago, in the island of Tutuila, as a 
naval station. We on our part agreed, "If, unhappily, any 
differences should have arisen, or shall hereafter arise, be- 
tween the Samoan government and any other government 
in amity with the United States, the government of the latter 
will employ its good offices for the purpose of adjusting those 
differences upon a satisfactory and solid foundation." Al- 
though this pledge did not constitute a protectorate, it was 
from time to time so interpreted by our consuls. At any 
rate, it seems to have been somewhat of a departure from our 
tradition of avoiding entangling obligations. 

In 1884 the German consul, on pretext of an agreement 
with King Malietoa, hoisted the German flag over the 
Approach of royal hut. In 1886 the American consul once 
the crisis more proclaimed our protectorate. Our govern- 

ment, being appealed to under the treaty of 1878, sent a 
commission to investigate, and in accordance with their 
report Bayard sought to come to an agreement with the 
German and British ministers at Washington. A conference 
was arranged, but failed to agree. Meantime a quarrel 
between King Malietoa and the German consul culminating 
opportunely at the time of the arrival of a German warsliip, 
the consul deposed and deported the king, and substituted 
for him another, Tamasese. Uprose at this point Mataafa, 
a native champion of island rights, and refused to recognize 
Tamasese. The German warship Adler bombarded Mataafa's 
villages, while the American consul, Sewall, steamed his 
launch between the Adler and the shore. Finally, De- 



OUR INFLUENCE IN THE PACIFIC 401 

cember 18, 1888, Mataafa surrounded a German landing 
party, and killed fifty of its members. 

German public opinion demanded satisfaction and the vin- 
dication of German arms; American public sentiment, touched 
by the heroism of the Samoans, demanded that The crisis and 
our government protect them; Great Britain, ^^ humcane 
jealous of Germany as a new rival in the colonial field, 
stood with the United States. All three sent warships, and 
it was a possibility that any day might bring news that 
their animosities, stimulated by the tropic heat, had resulted 
in hostilities. On March 16, 1880, a hurricane descended 
on Apia, blowing bad feeling away before it. Every one, 
the sailors of the three nations as well as the natives, showed 
helpfulness and good feeling, and the air in Samoa cleared. 

Meantime, in the real world Bayard and Bismarck were 
trying to reach a permanent solution of these troubles. 
Bayard, in accordance with American tradi- General Act of 
tions, insisted that the basis of such a solution ^"^ 
must be the authority of the natives; Bismarck could see 
no permanence for trade except in European control. At 
length, and after rather heated controversy, the Washington 
conference was revived in Berlin. The United States sent 
a commission headed by John A. Kasson, another veteran 
in diplomacy, who, like Trescott, was often called in for 
critical service. In 1889 there was concluded the General 
Act of Berlin, which recognized the independence of Samoa, 
but gave preponderance of authority to a chief justice and a 
president of the municipal council of Apia, to be chosen by the 
three powers, the United States, Great Britain, and Germany. 

Trivial as was this affair, its significance as illustrating 

the interplay of old and new forces in American diplomacy is 

great. Some importance attaches to the ap- , ,. x.- 

'^ '^ . ^ . Imphcations of 

pearance of a new bogy, the German empire, the Samoan 

In 1871 that power was supposed to want 

Samana Bay; the first actual evidence of rivalry with us 

appeared in the Samoan affair, and other instances were to 



402 AMERICAN DIPLOMACY 

arise. In this case, the real obstacle to agreement was the 
traditional American belief in the right of local self-govern- 
ment. Had we believed in the extension of the colonial 
system, division of the islands and compromise would have 
been easy. In the end, however, the United States, though 
she saved the form of independence for Samoa, was forced to 
consent to its violation in substance, thereby becoming her- 
self involved in a very spider's web of entangling alliance. 
It was the third such international agreement into which we 
had entered. The first, the treaty of 1866 between Great 
Britain, France, Holland, Japan, and ourselves, was per- 
haps only an agreement by concert. It was, however, al- 
ready proving troublesome, and would doubtless have 
entangled us seriously in the future had not rising Japan 
shaken it off. The second was an agreement concerning 
Morocco, entered into in 1880, including most European 
powers, and having to do with the protection of foreigners 
and their native proteges in that country. Apparently harm- 
less in itself, it involved us, though not materially, in the 
great Algeciras conference that bid fair to plunge Europe 
into war in 1906. It is important to note that none of these 
agreements had to do with Europe or the Americas, and 
that two were concerned with the Pacific.^ 

Richest and most strategically important of the island 

groups of the Pacific was Hawaii, where we had possessed 

from the beginning the really predominant 

terests in interest. As early as 1820 we had appointed 

Hawaii " i. j j »> 

an agent . . . lor commerce and seamen, 
and in the same year the first of our missionaries arrived 
there. The latter was particularly well received by the King 
Kamamaha, the Napoleon of the Pacific, who had consoli- 
dated the whole group of islands into a strong kingdom. 
The missionaries aided him in establishing a civilized govern- 
ment, reduced the language to writing, and codified the laws; 
their children became land-owners and sugar-planters, an 
* Schurz, Speeches, etc., v. 1-10. 



OUR INFLUENCE IN THE PACIFIC 403 

opulent and fascinating aristocracy, preserving their Amer- 
icanism of race and education. Our interests there were 
still further advanced by the establishment of reciprocity 
in 1875, and our commerce offered a substantial basis for a 
claim to priority.^ 

This we had put forth as early as 1842, when Webster said 
that the government of Hawaii should not be the object 
of interference by foreign powers. In 1843 _^. . 
a British naval officer made one of those un- protection of 
authorized seizures of the islands which so 
often result in the permanent extension of British territory. 
Legare instructed Everett to protest, and declared that, if 
Great Britain persisted, we might be justified even in using 
force, a warning which practically included Hawaii within 
the American continents and under the protection of the 
Monroe Doctrine. The British withdrew. An appearance 
of interest by France in 1851 led Fillmore to reiterate our 
views. Although Blaine, or some subordinate, forgot to 
invite her to the Pan-American Congress in 1889, it may be 
said to have been the American contention from the time of 
Webster that Hawaii was constructively and in the general 
sense American. Because of the priority of our interests, 
Bayard in 1888 refused to join with England and France in a 
joint guarantee of the government. 

Our protection was several times asked, and while any such 

formal arrangement was refused, it was practically extended. 

Marcy and Seward were anxious for annexa- Discussion of 

tion. Fish summed up the situation well in a^^^e^atio^ 

1873: "There seems to be a strong desire on the part of many 

persons in the islands, representing large interests and great 

wealth, to become annexed to the United States. And 

while there are, as I have already said, many and influential 

1 W. F. Blackman, The MaUng of Haimii, New York, etc., 1899; L. A. 
Thurston, A Hand-book on the Annexation of Hawaii, [St. Joseph, Mich., 
1897]; M. H. Krout, Hawaii and a Revolution, New York, 1898; Liliuokalani, 
Hawaii's Story by Hawaii's Queen, Boston, 1898; Chalfant Robinson, History 
of two Reciprocity Treaties, 



404 AMERICAN DIPLOMACY 

persons in this country who question the policy of ;iny insular 
acquisitions, perhaps even any extension of territorial limits, 
there are also those of influence and of wise foresight who see 
a future that must extend the jurisdiction and the limits of 
this nation, and that will require a resting spot in the mid- 
ocean, between the Pacific coast and the vast domains of 
Asia, which are now opening to commerce and Christian 
civilization." The feeling against expansion was too strong 
to be overcome, however, especially since the advantage of 
reciprocity made it seem unnecessary. Without annexation, 
even the navy was provided for : by a Senate amendment to a 
renewal of the reciprocity treaty in 1884, which was accepted 
by the Hawaiian government, we were to have the exclusive 
right to use Pearl harbor as a coaling and repair station. 

Nevertheless, Blaine in 1881 seriously considered annexa- 
tion, for the bogy of foreign influence was appearing. In a 
Blaine and confidential dispatch to our minister, Comly, he 

Hawaii gg^jj ^j^^^^^ ^g must take the islands if the native 

population continued to decline. "Throughout the con- 
tinent, north and south," he wrote, "wherever a foothold 
is found for American enterprize, it is quickly occupied, and 
this spirit of adventure, which seeks its outlet in the mines of 
South America and the railroads of Mexico, would not be 
slow to avail itself of openings of assured and profitable enter- 
prize even in mid-ocean." 

Before Blaine came in again foreign influence had taken 
on a definite fornix The king had died, and had been suc- 
British influ- ceeded by Queen Liliuokalani, who had married 
enceinHawau ^ Scotchman, and whose successor, the crowm 
princess Kaiulani, was the daughter of an Englishman and 
had been educated in England. Blaine appointed a personal 
friend, J. L. Stevens, as minister. On February 8, 1892, 
Stevens wrote: "At a future time, after the proposed treaty 
shall be ratified, I shall give you a more elaborate statement 
of facts and reasons why a 'new departure' by the United 
States as to Hawaii is rapidly becoming a necessity, that a 



OUR INFLUENCE IN THE PACIFIC 405 

protectorate is impracticable, and that annexation must be 
the future remedy or else Great Britain vnll he furnished with 
circumstances and opportunity to get a hold on these islands 
which will cause future serious embarrassment to the United 
States. iVt this time there seems to be no immediate pros- 
pect of its being safe to have the harbor of Honolulu left 
without an American vessel of war. Last week a British 
gunboat arrived here, and it is said will remain here for an 
indefinite period." Foster, succeeding Blaine, June 29, 1892, 
asked Stevens for two series of reports, one public and one 
confidential. On November 20, 1892, Stevens in one of the 
latter discussed the terms of annexation. Scenting a revolu- 
tion, he asked how to use the United States naval force 
which had been sent to the harbor. 

On January 14, 1893, the queen abolished the constitution 
drawn up and administered largely by the American element, 

and proclaimed a new one based on absolutism „ , ^ 
^ . Revolution 

and native home rule. At 2 p. m., January 16, and annexa- 
the American element organized a committee 
of safety ; at 4 :30 p. m. the United States forces landed at the 
request of Stevens. The next day a provisional government 
was organized and was at once recognized by Stevens; the 
queen surrendered under protest. Envoys of the new govern- 
ment were sent to the United States by the next steamer, 
and passage was refused to the envoy of the queen. Febru- 
ary 14 a treaty of annexation was drawn up at Washington. 
On March 9 President Cleveland withdrew this treaty 
from the consideration of the Senate and soon after sent a 
commissioner to investigate the facts of the _. . , 
revolt. The latter could not obtain evidence jects annexa- 
that Stevens was in collusion with the men who 
held the very quiet meeting at 2 p. m,, January 16, although 
the landing of our troops at 4:30 p. M., seemed to indicate 
his complicity. It was clear, however, that the only solid 
force behind the revolt was the presence of United States 
marines, and that the leaders had counted upon them. More- 



406 AMERICAN DIPLOMACY 

over, although the only proper pretext for the landing of the 
seamen was the protection of American citizens and property, 
yet they were stationed in a portion of the city where there 
was nothing American to protect. Cleveland recalled Stev- 
ens, and December 19 requested the new government to re- 
store the queen. This it refused to do; and even if the ma- 
jority of the population preferred the native dynasty, their 
preference was not strong enough, at any rate, to drive them 
to serious revolt, nor did Cleveland venture to use force. 
The provisional government became permanent, waiting for 
a return of Republican control in the United States and a 
renewed opportunity for annexation,^ 

Even if Hawaii was theoretically part of the American 
continent, practically it was far out in the Pacific, and even 
Our position in if it was still independent, its government was 
^^^^ as American as that of Texas between 1836 and 

1845. With Alaska and Midway island in our possession, 
with Hawaii American, and Samoa under our joint control, 
we were by 1897 halfway across to Asia. 

The period from 1877 to 1898 was one of flux. No strong 
current of popular interest or purpose was apparent, and 
1877 1898 a the surface of diplomacy was choppy with the 
period of flux ^ind of circumstance, but some eddies in the 
stream indicated new conditions not fully understood. The 
most important development was that of our interests in 
the Pacific, a process which had gone on for the most part 
independently of diplomacy, but which must before many 
years involve diplomatic action. Similarly, the impending 
changes in our commercial position arising from the growth 
of an export trade in manufactures was sure to concern the 
diplomat sooner or later. Of more immediate moment was 
the oscillation of our opinions as to the status of the isthmian 
canal which had become an imminent possibility. Our in- 
terest in Spanish America was increasing; there were some 
signs of a more special interest in the Caribbean, but no one 
' Senate Reports, 53 Cong. 2 sess., ii. No. 227. 



OUR INFLUENCE IN THE PACIFIC 407 

felt certain what our policy there would be. In a general 
way, also, it was evident that international associations w^ere 
becoming closer ; but whether we should be a dog in the manger 
or a gracious participant, and whether participation would 
mean the abandonment of our policy of self-contained ab- 
stinence from European politics, no one could tell. 



CHAPTER XXIX 

THE SPANISH WAR 

When William McKinley became President in 1897, he 
shared with an overwhelming majority of Americans the 
view that our destiny was peace and our in- 
heritance complete. The fact that we had, 
without becoming involved in war, passed through a period 
when diplomatic leadership was vacillating when it was not 
weak, and when the virile manhood of the country had been 
trained to battle, seemed to assure the future. It is possible, 
however, that the spiritual impulse to war is strongest when 
the horrors of past struggles have had time to become blurred, 
when the veteran, respected and reminiscent, embroiders its 
glories and its satisfactions. Neither the war of 1812 nor the 
Spanish war was necessary. Those responsible for both jus- 
tified themselves by referring to causes which had long been in 
existence. The development of the crisis in each case was in 
large measure due to the rise of a new spirit. 

The pugnacity and nationalism of Blaine and OIney were 
due in part to an apprehension, in part to a reflection, of a 
-J general militancy and a demonstrative pa- 

tions of pa- triotism. During the later eighties and nine- 
ties public schools began to teach respect for 
the flag, assemblies began to rise at the playing of the na- 
tional anthem or to be chidden for not rising, the comic opera 
began to exhibit the national emblems and to be condemned 
for so doing. American history and military drill came to 
be commonly taught in schools and colleges. A new genera- 
tion of historians dedicated themselves to the study of our 
past ; patriotic societies awakened the popular interest in the 
deeds of their ancestors. In a material way this sentiment 

408 



THE SPANISH WAR 409 

found expression in the regeneration of our navy, which, 
from its Civil war bulk and eflBciency, had sunk to such a 
point that in 1891 the prospect of war with Chili caused not 
entirely unjustifiable panic on the Pacific coast. 

The occasion that gave point to this national assertive- 
ness was the outbreak of a new revolt against Spanish rule 
in Cuba. This began in 1895, and in character Cuban insur- 
resembled the ten years' insurrection of 1868 section 
to 1878. Cubans themselves were divided, hence the strug- 
gle took on the nature of a civil war. The Spanish troops 
and volunteers were able to drive the insurrectionists to the 
mountains; but these, running in a long ridge from one end 
of the island to the other, offered countless fastnesses for 
refuge and for use as posts from which to attack the plan- 
tations in the plains at their foot.^ 

Innumerable causes of friction between the United States 
and Spain were inherent in the situation. The Cubans 
planned to conduct the war from the United American as- 
States as a base. Many Cubans of wealth distance 
resided in the United States, and that sympathy for revolu- 
tion which has never failed among us promised assistance. 
A Cuban committee headed by the inspiring name of Ethan 
Allen raised the Cuban fiag over its headquarters in New 
York. Cuban bonds were sold, and the press generally ex- 
pressed its hope for the success of the movement. Irritating 
as all this was to Spain, she had no cause to complain unless 
words were transmuted into action. This Cleveland tried to 
prevent, by ordering our neutrality laws to be enforced. In 
spite, however, of an administration that seemed to be con- 
scientiously rigid, aid did reach Cuba. The Spanish govern- 

' Chadwick, Relations of the United States and Spain, Diplomacy; Louis Le 
Fur, Etude sur la guerre hispano-americaine de 1898, Paris, 1899; J. H. 
Latane, America as a World Power 1897-1907. {American Nation, vol. xxv.), 
chs. i.-iv; E. J. Benton, International Laio and Diplomacy of the Spanish- 
American War, Baltimore, 1908; Achille Viallate, Les preliminaires de la 
guerre hispano-americaine et V annexation des Philippines par les Etats-Unis, 
Revue Historique, 1903, Ixxxii. 242-291. 



410 AMERICAN DIPLOMACY 

ment asserted that its delay in quelling the insurrection was 
due to this assistance. 

The causes for irritation on the part of the United States 
were numerous. American capital was invested in the 
American in- island, particularly in the tobacco industry, 
terests ^^j^^^ ^^g therefore subject to loss. Many of our 

citizens, particularly natives of Cuba naturalized in the 
United States, were residents and were doing business there, 
and these were continually in trouble. Official complaints 
and inquiries by our government include such subjects as 
the maltreatment of naturalized iVmericans, their irregular 
trial and condemnation for participation in the revolt, the 
destruction of American property, the expropriation of prop- 
erty of United States citizens for military use, the methods 
of dealing with American vessels thought to be running the 
blockade, the Spanish prohibition of the export of leaf to- 
bacco to the injury of American interests, the withdrawal of 
Spanish protection from American plantations and other 
property, to say nothing of the harsh treatment of the cor- 
respondents of the American press recklessly seeking news 
in the dungeon's mouth. 

The fact that Spain had not yet settled our claims arising 
out of the last war did not diminish our insistence. These 
Disputes be- claims were actually paid in 1898, but we were 
and^United^" ^t odds not only over Spanish delay but also 
States over theory. Since we had recognized no state 

of war, we still held her responsible for the acts of the insur- 
gents, such as the destruction of some property and the levy 
of assessments to secure the exemption of still more, a respon- 
sibility which Spain continued to deny, as she had done in 
1871. This conflict of opinion was, however, less provocative 
of bad feeling than the annoyance to which we were con- 
stantly subjected in the delay caused by the necessity of 
dealing with every petty case through Madrid. Complaints 
came to our consul-general at Havana, from him went to 
Washington, and thence to Madrid; Madrid sought the 



THE SPANISH WAR 411 

facts from Havana, and on receiving them, if there were no 
controversy, sent its orders to Havana. 

While such calls by the hundreds almost clogged our state 
department, the people did not confine their attention to 
the sufferings of our own citizens. The conduct American 
of the war itself was the leading topic of their sympathy 
comment. After Martinez de Campos had driven the in- 
surgents from the fields but failed to dislodge them from 
the mountains, he was succeeded by General Weyler, the 
" Butcher," as he came to be known in America. He adopted 
two methods of subduing the rebels. One was that of the 
corral, a system of wire fences and blockhouses stretched 
across the island, and gradually pushed forward with the 
hope of penning the insurgents up in one end. The other 
method was that of starving them out by destroying every- 
thing eatable within their reach. To accomplish this ob- 
ject, Weyler caused the population of infected areas to be 
brought together in reconcentrado camps, and crops and 
granaries to be burned. This policy involved the virtual 
imprisonment of many American citizens and the giving 
over of their property to destruction. Executed with all 
the Spanish indifference to suffering, the prevailing lack of 
sanitary knowledge, and the inadequacy of Spain's financial 
resources, the reconcentrado camps became pest-holes filled 
with starving unfortunates. 

The horror of the American public at these atrocities so 
near their own territory was inflamed, as the pressure of 
their opinion upon tlie government was con- influence of 
stantly increased, by the attention which the ^® ^^^^^ 
press devoted to Cuban affairs. The boast of an important 
American journalist that it cost him three millions to bring 
on the war need not be taken seriously. In spite of the bril- 
liancy of his sensational strokes, it was upon other papers 
than his that the solid elements which pushed Congress to 
action based their opinion. It was by no particular design 
that the press as a whole exploited the Cuban question; it 



412 AMERICAN DIPLOMACY 

was the question of the day upon which Americans wanted 
news. It was on the reports of such men as Consul-General 
Lee and Senator Proctor, and of reliable and known corre- 
spondents, that the effective majority formed its views. If, 
however, the American people had not possessed such an 
instrument as their press to circulate the opinions of Lee and 
Proctor, to ascertain the facts that they wished to know, 
their interest might have remained dormant and the war 
might not have occurred. 

Cleveland, intent on peace, enforced neutrality, refused to 
recognize belligerency, but offered mediation and threatened 
Development intervention. Sherman, McKinley's secretary 
of policy q£ state, followed the example of Fish by as- 

serting our right to oversee the conduct of the war. June 26, 
1897, he wrote: "The inclusion of a thousand or more of our 
own citizens among the victims of this [the reconcentrado] 
policy, the wanton destruction of the legitimate investments 
of Americans to the amount of millions of dollars, and the 
stoppage of avenues of normal trade — all these give the 
President the right of specific remonstrance, but in the just 
fulfillment of his duty he cannot limit himself to these formal 
grounds of complaint. He is bound by the higher obligations 
of his representative office to protest against the uncivilized 
and inhuman conduct of the campaign in the Island of Cuba. 
He conceives that he has a right to demand that a war, con- 
ducted almost within sight of our shores and grievously af- 
fecting American citizens and their interests throughout the 
length and breadth of the land, shall at least be conducted 
according to the military codes of civilization." In a later 
dispatch he called attention to the fact that conditions in 
the camps imperilled our own health. On July 16 he wrote 
to Woodford, our minister in Spain, that public opinion 
strongly demanded recognition, and that beyond recognition 
lay intervention. He asked whether Spain could offer a 
solution. 

The death of the Spanish prime minister, the conservative 



THE SPANISH WAR 413 

Canovas, in the following fall, and the appointment of the 
liberal Sagasta, seemed to promise alleviation. In November, 
Spain promised to break up the reconcentrado Change of 
camps; the queen regent issued decrees for the Sp^'^sh policy 
establishment of legislative autonomy in Cuba and sub- 
stituting Blanco for Weyler; and on December 6, McKinley 
told Congress that we must allow time enough to determine 
the success of the new system. Our government, however, 
more and more earnestly urged upon Spain that the struggle 
in Cuba could not be indefinitely prolonged without necessity 
for action on our part; and in March it began to grow restive. 

During this watchful pause in the development of our 
policy two episodes inflamed the public mind. Dupuy de 
Lome, the Spanish minister at Washington, in De Lome epi- 
a private letter to a Madrid editor visiting ^°^^ 
Havana, characterized McKinley as a vacillating and time- 
serving politician. This letter fell into the hands of the 
American press. On the same day on which it was published, 
February 9, 1898, Woodford was instructed to demand his 
recall. De Lome, upon seeing the facsimile of his letter in a 
newspaper, cabled his resignation. It was accepted, and 
he thus escaped the punishment he should have received. 
Although our state department expressed satisfaction, it 
would have been more conducive to peace had he been re- 
called. 

On January 24, 1898, we expressed our intention of send- 
ing a warship on a friendly visit to Havana, the Maine was 
sent, and on February 15, in Havana harbor, _.. , . . 
an explosion utterly wrecked the ship and up of the 
killed 266 of the crew, besides wounding 60. 
A large portion of the American public at once attributed 
this catastrophe to the action of Spain, the more conserva- 
tive laid it to the individual action of Spanish oflBcers. T. B. 
Reed, speaker of the House of Representatives and an oppo- 
nent of war, suggested, but not openly, that the insurgents 
blew up the vessel in order to bring on war. Spain naturally 



414 AMERICAN DIPLOMACY 

urged internal combustion as the cause. Among these con- 
flicting theories, that of Spanish responsibility was the most 
general in the United States, and "Remember the Maine" 
became a popular call to action. Responding to the new 
impulse, Congress could no longer be held in check. March 9 
J. G. Cannon introduced a bill granting fifty million to the 
President for w^ar preparations; and still more definite action 
was inevitable unless it were prevented by some decided 
change in the situation. 

The administration exerted itself to change the situation. 
In the age and infirmity of Secretary Sherman, the manage- 
Last effort for ment of the negotiation at Washington was 
P^^^^ undertaken by the assistant secretary of state, 

President McKinley's close friend, William R. Day. The 
cable was kept hot with messages between him and Wood- 
ford, who was in constant touch with the Spanish adminis- 
tration. The latter did not want war any more than we did, 
but feared humiliation. It regarded Cuba as already lost, 
but it must save its face with the Spanish public. 

March 27, 1895, Day enumerated our demands to Wood- 
ford: anmesty until October 1, during which negotiations 
United States should be conducted through the President of 
demands ^j^^ United States; immediate abolition of the 

reconcentrado policy, and admission, which had heretofore 
been refused, of relief from the United States for the suffering; 
should the negotiations prove unsuccessful, the President 
was to act as arbiter. The demand for facilities to examine 
the Maine in order to ascertain the cause of the explosion 
had already been made. Under these terms the Spanish 
government writhed, fearing to yield completely, and yet 
realizing the necessity of yielding in substance. March 31 
it abrogated the reconcentrado system in the western prov- 
inces and offered to refer the question of the Maine to arbi- 
tration. April 3, Woodford cabled that, should the President 
ask the Pope to intervene, the hitter's suggestion for an im- 
mediate amnesty would be accepted. Spain would also, he 



THE SPANISH WAR 415 

intimated, feel less humiliated in yielding, if we withdrew our 
fleet now in Cuban waters. "I can get the peace that you 
have worked so hard for," he protested. Day replied, 
"Would the peace you are so confident of securing mean the 
independence of Cuba? The President cannot hold his mes- 
sage longer than Tuesday." 

On April 5 Day was informed that the reconcentrado policy 
was abolished over the entire island, and Woodford cabled 

asking if an amnesty by the queen regent, o • . t. • 

opRin s ncsi* 

dated April 6, and prefaced, "at the request tating accept- 
of the Holy Father, and in sincere hope and 
belief that during this suspension permanent and honorable 
peace may be obtained," would be sufficient. "Please read 
this," he added, "in the light of all my previous telegrams 
and letters. I believe that this means peace, which the sober 
judgment of our people will approve long before next Novem- 
ber, and which must be approved at the bar of final history." 
Day said that the President would lay the whole matter before 
Congress. On April 6 a joint note of the powers was pre- 
sented, appealing "to the feelings of humanity and modera- 
tion of the President and of the American people." A similar 
note was presented to Spain, and at length, on April 9, an 
amnesty based on this appeal was granted and negotiation 
with the insurgents authorized. On April 10 Woodford 
cabled that the negotiation would result in autonomy, 
independence, or cession to us, according to our wishes. 
By this time, so far as our government knew, there re- 
mained no American citizen in a Cuban prison, the recon- 
centrado policy had been stopped, American d' 1 - 
relief had been admitted, most questions arising matic status, 
in Cuba could be settled directly through our 
consul at Havana, Fitzhugh Lee, arbitration on the Maine 
controversy had been offered, and amnesty had been granted. 
In two respects our terms had not been exactly met, that 
the negotiation during the amnesty be conducted officially 
through the President, and that the President be arbi- 



416 AMERICAN DIPLOMACY 

ter if the negotiation failed. Our minister, howev^er, as- 
sured the government that its decision would govern the 
result. This solution McKinley seems to have been content 
to accept; yet it may be well questioned how valuable was the 
assurance of a government that dared not announce its 
decision to its own people. Spanish public opinion was as 
excited as our own. The less educated believed that war 
would be successful; and many of those who realized that it 
would not, preferred war to the revolution which they feared 
if the crown should yield to the United States. However 
sincere the government of Sagasta, there was no guarantee 
that Sagasta could remain in office. Under these circum- 
stances the President would not have been justified in resist- 
ing the sentiment of Congress that war was necessary. 

On April 11 he sent in his message, already delayed a few 
days in order to allow Americans to leave Cuba and to permit 
McKinley and the completion of war preparations. He 
Congress recommended forcible intervention, but recog- 

nition of neither belligerency nor independence; whereupon 
Congress, entirely out of hand, adopted joint resolutions, on 
April 17, calling upon Spain to withdraw from Cuba and 
authorizing the President to use our forces to compel her to do 
so. It was further resolved that the United States did not 
desire Cuba, and "that the people of the island of Cuba are 
and of right ought to be free and independent." In this last 
resolution vanished, apparently forever, the cherished hope 
and frequently expressed conviction of our statesmen from 
Jefferson to the Civil war, that Cuba must inevitably become 
part of the United States. 

Since neither Spain nor the United States had adhered to 

the Declaration of Paris, they were free to practice pri- 

„ . , vateering. On April 26, 1898, however, the 

Rules of war . ..... 

President of his own initiative proclaimed the 

principles of that declaration, and on May 7 a proclamation 

of the queen regent announced that practically the same rules 

would be observed by Spain. 



THE SPANISH WAR 417 

The administration had already determined, in the event of 
war, to attack the Spanish empire not only in Cuba but also 
at its other extremity, the Philippines. Those The Philip- 
far-away islands had appeared in our diplomacy ^"^^^ 
as early as 1786, when Rufus King suggested that trade con- 
cessions there might be obtained from Spain in part payment 
for Jay's proposed surrender of the navigation of the Missis- 
sippi for a term of years. ^ Historically they might have been 
supposed to fall under the wing of the Monroe Doctrine, for 
the Spaniards regarded them as part of the western hemi- 
sphere; in fact it was the supposition that they fell within the 
continuance of Alexander VI 's demarcation line that gave 
Spain her first title to them. Actually, moreover, their con- 
nection with Europe had been westward until the independ- 
ence of Spanish America barred the way. But it is not 
probable that such considerations as these influenced young 
Captain Dewey when, at the time of the Virginius affair, 
he proposed, in case war should break out, to take the ves- 
sel which he was commanding on the west coast of Mexico 
across the Pacific and attack Manila.^ To him it was merely 
that Manila was a vulnerable point; and it was probably the 
same reason that moved the administration in 1898 to order 
Commodore Dewey and his fleet to attack that port. It is 
also to be observed that for a belligerent American fleet in 
Asia there were but three alternatives, — to return home, to be 
interned in a neutral port, or to occupy an enemy's harbor. 
Moreover, it was doubtless felt that a natural result of 
peace might be the concession to us of a harbor of our own 
in the East, which would prevent the recurrence of a simi- 
lar situation. On May 1, by the battle of Manila Bay, 
Dewey made good his position in the best harbor of the 
archipelago. 

The war having gone against her, Spain, on July 22, 1898, 
through the French ambassador Cambon, made the first 

^ King to Gerry, June 4, 1786, Mass. Hist. Soc, Proceedings, 1866, pp. 9-12. 
* George Dewey, Autobiography, New York, 1913. 



418 AMERICAN DIPLOMACY 

approach for peace. On July 30 Day replied, stating our 
general terms; Spain was to relinquish all her claim to Cuba 
. and immediately to withdraw; she was to grant 

peace negotia- us as indemnity all her remaining West India 
islands and a selected island in the Ladrone 
group, in the mid-Pacific; "the United States," he declared, 
"will occupy and hold the city, bay, and harbor of Manila, 
pending the conclusion of a treaty of peace which shall de- 
termine the control, disposition, and government of the Phil- 
ippines." These terms Spain accepted, August 7, with the 
statement that she did not ipso facto relinquish the Philip- 
pines; and on August 12 a protocol of agreement was signed. 

The treaty of peace was to be drawn at Paris. The Presi- 
dent appointed as president of the commission Day, who had 
The peace succeeded Sherman as secretary of state on 

commission ^pj.j| ^6, and who on September 16 resigned 
that post to undertake this new service. With him were sen- 
ators Davis, Frye, and Gray, and Whitelaw Reid. The 
commission was conspicuously fortunate in having as its sec- 
retary the publicist John Bassett Moore, who had been con- 
nected with the state department from 1885 to 1891, thus 
overlapping the long tenure of Hunter, and who had just 
now been serving as assistant secretary of state. The Spanish 
commissioner least unknown to America was Don Eugenio 
Montero Rlos. 

The negotiations from our point of view were the simplest 
in which we had ever been engaged, for we stood in a position 
to demand what we wanted. The trouble was, we were not 
entirely certain what we did want. The Spanish delegates 
were particularly disturbed over the debt secured by Cuban 
revenues. The other Spanish-American States had, on re- 
ceiving recognition from Spain, assumed their debts; but, as 
this one had been incurred in the effort to subdue Cuba 
rather than in an attempt to improve her condition, our 
commissioners would not consent that the new island govern- 
ment should be saddled with it. The United States, never 



THE SPANISH WAR 419 

avaricious of money from a defeated enemy, released Spain 
from all claims resulting from the insurrection, and agreed to 
adjudge and pay them herself. It is interesting to note that 
the domestic commission appointed for their settlement 
adopted the Spanish contention that Spain was not responsi- 
ble for the acts of the insurgents and that " concentration and 
devastation are legitimate war measures." On one point we 
yielded to the desires of Spain. She was unwilling, on 
abandoning Cuba, to deliver it to the insurgents, a sense of 
honor and prudence combining to urge her to this position. 
We therefore agreed to receive the island in trust. The island 
which we selected in the Ladrone group, Guam, was ceded 
to us. 

By far the chief feature of the negotiation, however, was 
the disposition of the Philippines. McKinley stated in 
August: "I do not want any ambiguity to be status of the 
allowed to remain on this point. The negotia- P^^i^PPuies 
tors of both countries are the ones who shall resolve upon the 
permanent advantages which we shall ask in Ihe archipelago, 
and decide upon the intervention, disposition, and govern- 
ment of the Philippines." On October 31 the American 
commissioners formally suggested the cession of the whole 
group to the United States. Apparently the chief evidence 
before the commission to lead to this decision was the report 
of General Merritt, who brought directly from Manila the 
views of Admiral Dewey. He pointed out that we wanted 
one of the islands as a coaling station, and that what we left 
some other nation, stronger than Spain, would take. He 
felt that the actual situation in the islands was bad, and that 
in some way we were responsible for its cure. 

The foreign bogy in this case was Germany. It is quite 

possible that Germany, on the lookout for colonies, had 

before our war considered the acquisition of the „. 

Minor points 
islands. The action of her Pacific fleet during 

our occupation of Manila harbor was calculated to excite such 

suspicion, and, her prompt purchase, in 1899, of everything 



420 AMERICAN DIPLOMACY 

that we left to Spain in that ocean is further evidence of 
her desires. As the Philippines were not in America, 
our non-transfer corollary of the Monroe Doctrine did 
not apply to them; but it was obvious that the value 
of a naval station there would be much diminished if sur- 
rounded by the possessions of a strong naval power like 
Germany. 

That the question of the disposition of the islands was not 
more complicated was due to Admiral Dewey's knowledge of 
Conditions in international law and his tact. He found an 
the islands insurrection going on there similar to that which 

we had found in Cuba; but, while maintaining friendly 
relations with the insurrectionists and cooperating with them, 
he refrained from recognition. It was evident that, should 
the forces of Spain be withdrawn, widespread murder and de- 
struction of property would take place; on the other hand, 
should we leave the islands in the hands of Spain, we would 
leave civil war, and would abandon the islanders, who under 
their leader Aguinaldo had been cooperating with us. The 
suggestion of Carl Schurz, that we turn the islands over to 
Belgium or Holland, was hardly within the cognizance of 
practical international politics, if indeed it was consistent 
with international morality. It was this situation which 
seemed to Admiral Dewey to involve us in some responsi- 
bility. 

It can hardly be that a question of this magnitude was left 
to the commissioners, particularly under a President so 
American pub- notably characterized by keeping his ear to the 
he opinion ground as was McKinley. It is impossible to 

believe that the decision was not made at Washington, and in 
accordance with the pressure of what the administration 
believed to be public opmion. When Dewey won the battle 
of Manila Bay, the idea of expansion so far afield was novel 
to the great majority of Americans. As the sentiment for 
"all Mexico" developed during our war with that country, 
so an expansionist feeling developed in the United States dur- 



THE SPANISH WAR 421 

ing the summer and fall of 1898. Engendered by the reasons 
already given, it received direction from two forces par- 
ticularly powerful at the White House — the influence of 
capital seeking new fields for exploitation, and the enthu- 
siasm of the missionary element filled with the idea of 
the good that we might do there. With many to whom 
the diffusion of Christianity by the organized work of 
religious bodies was not a leading purpose, a general belief 
in the civilizing function of our race, just then set forth 
in Kipling's White Man's Burden, was a deciding con- 
sideration.^ 

The Spanish commissioners were forced to accept the 
American proposition, sugared as it was by the payment of 
twenty millions. The annexation of territory Terms of the 
not a part of the American continents, thickly *^®**y 
populated by a foreign race, and not likely ever to become 
predominantly American constituted in each particular a 
departure from our previous policy. The last two differences 
the Philippines shared with Porto Rico, included in the same 
treaty.^ An additional divergence was made in the provision 
that the civil rights and political status of the inhabitants " of 
the territories hereby ceded to the United States shall be 
determined by the Congress." Their religious freedom only 
was secured by the treaty. In all previous annexations provi- 
sion had been made for incorporation into the United States, 
except in case of Alaska, and there all except the native 
Indians were to have the rights of citizens of the United 
States.^ For the first time we were acquiring colonies. What 

1 Herbert Croly, M. A. Hanna (New York, 1912), 279-280, attributes 
much influence to Senator Orville Piatt. 

^ Whitelaw Reid, Problems of Expansion, New York, 1912; H. von Hoist, 
The Annexation of our Spanish Conquests, Chicago, 1898. 

'The Russian treaty provided: "The inhabitants of the ceded terri- 
tory . . . with the exception of uncivilized native tribes, shall be admitted 
to the enjoyment of all the rights ... of citizens of the United States." 
The Spanish treaty declared of native Spaniards that, if they did not assert 
their Spanish citizenship, they should be considered "to have adopted the 
nationality" of the territory in which they might reside; and it added. 



422 AMERICAN DIPLOMACY 

the Federalists had contended for in the Louisiana debate 
was now the national policy. The treaty was signed on 
December 10, 1898. 

"The civil rights and political status of the native inhabitants of the ter- 
ritories hereby ceded to the United States shall be determined by the Con- 
gress." 



CHAPTER XXX 

IMPERIALISM AND GREAT BRITAIN 

The Spanish war brought to light, and accelerated in 
progress, a spirit which may properly be called imperialism. 

That democratic regard for simplicity which , 

. . Impenalism 

had prevented the appointment of foreign rep- 
resentatives of the highest official rank yielded, in 1893, to 
the appointment of ambassadors, though not so far as to 
provide for their maintenance on an equality with those of 
other nations. The attempt to give a similar titular prece- 
dence to our naval officers, who often perform semi-diplomatic 
functions, made slower progress; Dewey, as a special re- 
ward, was made admiral (1899), and the grade of vice-admiral 
has just (1915) been created. After the war, moreover, 
the regular army was increased to double its previous 
size. Although this enlargement had special reference to 
the occupation of the Philippines, the steady and very much 
greater increase of the navy has been based on more general 
grounds. 

This spirit was voiced by Rear-admiral Alfred Thayer 
Mahan, and by Theodore Roosevelt. Both trained histori- 
ans, and with a wide knowledge of other peo- Mahan, 
pies and of world politics, they were able to 
avoid many of the errors and inconsistencies which had 
marred the programs of Blaine and Olney. Mahan in a 
series of studies of naval history published between 1883 and 
1913, pointed out the importance of sea power in the world's 
history, its relations to the future of the United States, and 
the necessity of our maintaining a large navy and securing 
strategic bases for naval operations. He tried to bring 
public sentiment to a realization of the fact that the United 

423 



424 AMERICAN DIPLOMACY 

States could not safely remain forever aloof, and that it 
should not confide too trustingly in the hope for universal 
peace. His books received even more attention abroad than 
at home, and belong as much to the international literature of 
the discussion of peace and war, which now began to divide 
the world of thought, as to the literature of American history. 
These views were shared by Roosevelt, who from his return 
from Cuba at the close of the Spanish war for a dozen years 
rode a wave of popularity whose crest seemed ever to mount 
higher. As President from 1901 to 1909, he was able to 
give them effect. The navy, whose record against Spain 
had made a profound impression on international opinion, 
was increased until it eventually ranked just after those of 
Great Britain and Germany; its efiiciency was tested and at 
the same time thrust upon the attention of the world by 
its circumnavigation of the globe by order of the President 
in 1907. The impression which this latter event made 
whether at home or abroad, was scarcely so great as that 
created by the brilliant and dashing personality of President 
Roosevelt himself. It seemed evident that a nation so 
equipped and so led, and that of its own choice, would play 
a larger part in world movements than the United States 
had done in the past. 

The war probably had no effect on the fact or the form of 
Hawaiian annexation. McKinley, to be sure, shortly after 
.. his inauguration, conveyed to Carl Schurz the 

impression that the subject would not be 
pressed; ^ but those best informed realized that the return of 
the Republican party meant annexation. The war, neverthe- 
less, hastened the process. July 7, 1898, a treaty negotiation 
was cut short by the passage of a joint resolution providing 
for annexation on the old terms of incorporation into the 
United States. A new note was struck, however, by the pro- 
test of the Japanese government, based on the disturbance of 
the balance of power in the Pacific, and on the possible effect 
1 Schurz, Speeches, etc., vi. 270, 271. 



IMPERIALISM AND GREAT BRITAIN 425 

upon the large number of its citizens who were laborers and 
merchants in the islands.^ 

Of the influence of the Spanish treaty on the final settle- 
ment of the Samoan question, on the other hand, there can 
be no doubt. Constant difficulties having 
arisen under the General Act of Berlin, and 
our scruples at the extinction of native rule having become 
deadened, we agreed, on December 4, 1899, to a treaty of 
division. This gave us the island of Tutuila, 
whose fine harbor of Pagopago we had had the 
right to use since 1878. Germany took the other islands, and 
Great Britain received compensation elsewhere. This treaty 
contained no provision for incorporation or civil rights. 
While this negotiation, with the reassertion of our claim to 
Midway island, or rather islands, and the occupation of the 
neighboring Wake island in 1900, completed the Midway and 
tale of our acquisitions, it does not indicate the ^^^^ islands 
extent to which the colonial policy was applied. A treaty 
was once more negotiated for the purchase of the Danish 
islands, but it was rejected by the Danish parliament. As 
there was some doubt whether the Isle of Pines, to the south- 
west of Cuba, belonged to that government, the matter was 
left open in our treaty with the new nation in 1903. Negotia- 
tion, however, resulted in giving it to her. 

More important than all the rest was the action of Congress. 
That body made use of the discretion left it by the treaty 
with Spain to establish the Spanish cessions colonial gov- 
upon a basis definitely colonial, without refer- ^^nments 
ence to their future incorporation into the United States. 
In the case of Cuba we conscientiously carried out our ob- 
ligations both to Spain and to the islanders, by handing its 
government over to the latter as soon as they were organized 
to receive it and competent to protect persons and property. 
In so doing, however, we insisted on certain permanent con- 
ditions prescribed by Congress and known as the "Piatt 
^ Moore, Digest, i. 504. 



426 AMERICAN DIPLO^IACY 

amendment." These conditions provided that Cuba should 
never allow any foreign power or powers to impair its inde- 
Platt amend- pendence in any way; that the government 
™®°* should contract no debt which could not be paid 

by a sinking fund from the ordinary revenues; that the United 
States should have the right to intervene in Cuba "for the 
preservation of Cuban independence, the maintenance of a 
government adequate for the protection of life, property, 
and individual liberty, and for discharging the obligations" 
with respect to the rights and property of Spanish subjects 
under the treaty of Paris; that Cuba should provide for the 
sanitation of her cities, and should grant the United States 
"lands necessary for coaling or naval stations" and for cog- 
nate purposes. By the treaty embodying these provisions 
we practically added a protectorate to our colonies. 

The change involved in the sudden extension of our terri- 
tory almost to the Asiatic coast, and still more in our new 
Attitude of spirit, did not escape the attention of Europe. 
Europe The general sentiment was at first one of dis- 

approval. In France, Spanish bondholders were at first 

alarmed by the war, and then were indignant 
France . 

at our refusal to impose the Cuban debt on the 

island government. German opinion was influenced by the 

_ fact that we apparently had forestalled its gov- 

Gennany ... .... 

ernment m takmg over the Phihppuies, and it 

was kept excited by the exchange of discourtesies between the 
officers of the two fleets. Austria, never friendly, remember- 
ing the fate of Maximilian, was distressed at the 
losses of the queen regent of Spain, a member 
of the Hapsburg house. The feeling of Italy had been con- 
tinually aggravated by repeated lynchings of 
Italian subjects in the United States. In afl'airs 
of that kind the United States government was unable to af- 
ford the protection of its courts, as the punishment for such 
offences fell within the jurisdiction of the states, whose courts 
often failed to do their duty. The most important case was 



IMPERIALISM AND GREAT BRITAIN 427 

that at New Orleans in 1891, but others occurred in Colorado 
in 1896, at Hahnville, Louisiana, in 1896, and at Tallulah in 
the same state in 1899. In each of these instances. Congress 
voted indemnity, but this wergeld did not entirely assuage 
the national ill-feeling. 

To these special sources of discontent was added a general 
resentment at the sudden apparition of a new world power 
which might upset the nicely adjusted balance 
of international politics. More immediately power and bal- 
alarming was the fact that the balance of trade ^^ ° * ^ 
seemed already upset. In 1895 we had exported less than 
fifty millions more than we imported, in 1900 over five 
hundred million more; and much of the surplus consisted of 
manufactured goods. Credits accumulated at New York, 
which seemed likely to become the financial centre of the 
world. ^ Our bankers began to talk of the financing of the 
loans of foreign governments, an industry which had pre- 
viously been monopolized by London, Paris, and Berlin, 
and which carried with it a vast influence in world politics. 
This condition was in part temporary, due to the "dump- 
ing " by our trusts, at under-cost prices, of the accumulated 
supplies of overproduction, a practice very unpopular at 
home where prices were kept up behind the protection of our 
tariff wall, but equally unpopular abroad, where it was feared 
that these low prices would undermine established industries. 
Joined with the fear of German competition, it formed the 
basis of Joseph Chamberlain's somewhat later campaign for 
protection in England. The United States loomed so gigantic 
on the horizon of industrial and diplomatic competition, 
which are always closely connected, that during the years im- 
mediately following the Spanish war, talk of European com- 
bination to oppose her advance was in the air. 

Great Britain was the one great power who, in spite of 
her industrial fears, welcomed the rise of the United States. 
Her population had more appreciation of the humanitarian 
1 Coman, Industrial History, 327-331. 



428 AMERICAN DIPLOMACY 

impulse that lay behind our intervention in Cuba. Her states- 
men hoped much from our moral assistance. She was at that 
time diplomatically in a position which Lord 
Salisbury described as one of "spendid isola- 
tion," but which was not without its dangers, particularly in 
view of the impending Boer war. Somewhat exaggerating the 
Anglo-Saxon character of our population, her orators called 
attention to the ties of blood and the world destiny of our 
common race. For the first time in our national history there 
was a real cordiality between the two peoples, though it was 
most demonstrative on the part of the English. An alliance, 
formal or informal, with the United States they would have 
greeted with enthusiasm. 

The task of adapting American foreign policy to these new 
conditions raised our diplomacy to an importance equal to 
Diplomatic that which it had possessed in the early days of 

**^^ the republic and during the Civil war. To 

adjust the nation to its new position without sacrificing the 
principles developed in the past was an operation of a deli- 
cacy hardly exceeded by that of preserving our neutrality 
during the French revolutionary wars, or of keeping Europe 
neutral while we ourselves were fighting. It was the more 
difficult because of the divided tones in wliich the voice of 
the past came down through the confusion of the eighties and 
nineties. That its importance was appreciated is evident 
from the struggle for control which was almost continuously 
waged between the administration and the Senate. In the 
Executive latter the leadership was generally with Sen- 

versus Senate ^^^^ Lodge, long a member of the committee 
on foreign affairs; but his leadership did not mean control. 
Except in one case, in which it acted alone and in one other 
in which it joined with the House, namely, in ordering the ab- 
rogation of the Russian treaty, the power of the Senate has 
been confined to checking or modifying the policy of the ad- 
ministration. The direction of policy has been with the 
executive. 



IMPERIALISM AND GREAT BRITAIN 429 

Fortunately, at this time the main burden fell upon John 
Hay, secretary of state from September, 1898, to June, 1905. 
Beginning public life as private secretary to 
President Lincoln, he had passed the years since 
that time in minor diplomatic posts, in journalistic and lit- 
erary work, and in an advantageously placed social position 
at home and abroad, until his appointment by President Mc- 
Kinley as ambassador to Great Britain in 1897. Somewhat 
predisposed by his European associations to think in the 
terms of the great powers, he was least successful in his deal- 
ings with the Spanish-American nations. His knowledge of 
international law, of historic tendencies, and of men was, how- 
ever, in its combination unsurpassed in his day. He pos- 
sessed such an Americanism as can exist only when based on 
a complete knowledge of American development. Most of all, 
during his tenure he divorced the office of secretary of state 
from politics. Under McKinley he was left with a free hand 
in his own department, and he himself did not interfere in 
others; under Roosevelt the latter 's vigorous personality 
asserted itself on particular questions, but the general policy 
remained Hay's. In diplomatic ability and accomplish- 
ment he is to be ranked with Franklin and John Quincy 

Adams. His successor, Elihu Root, who served „. 

Ml X ,^^/^ 11 1 rr. Elihu Root 

till January, 1909, brought to the oiface an un- 
rivalled legal knowledge and a compelling geniality of ap- 
proach. 

From 1897 to 1913 there was an unusual degree of conti- 
nuity in the diplomatic service, accompanied by some reg- 
ularity of promotion. Thus Henry White, Diplomatic 
employed in minor but responsible posts from service 
1879 until Cleveland's second term, was again called into 
service and appointed successively as secretary of the London 
embassy, as ambassador to Italy and later to France, and to 
many special missions and international conferences. David 
Jayne Hill, an eminent student of diplomatic history, served 
in Switzerland, the Netherlands, and Germany. John 



430 AMERICAN DIPLOMACY 

Barrett was minister to Spain in 1894, and later to Argentina, 
to Panama, and to Colombia; he took part in many inter- 
national conferences, and became director-general of the 
Pan-American Union in 1905. C. P. Bryan was minister 
successively in China, Brazil, Switzerland, Portugal, Belgium, 
and was ambassador to Japan; Charlemagne Tower was 
ambassador to Austria, Russia, and Germany; J. G. A. 
Leishman was minister to Switzerland and Turkey, and 
ambassador to Italy and Germany. The triple embassy of 
Oscar Straus to Turkey, 1887-1889, 1898-1901, and 1909- 
1910, and the long service of Whitelaw Reid in England, 
1905 to 1913, are noticeable. All these were men of ability, 
and they had an opportunity to acquire diplomatic experience 
of which most of them took advantage. If some of them in- 
dulged in an ostentation of extravagance a bit offensive to 
good taste, at least they were representative of an important 
element among their countrymen, and they spent their 
money on the whole with grace. 

The action of President Wilson, in 1913, in removing 
nearly all the heads of missions shows that the elements of 
. continuity and promotion found between 
the diplomatic 1897 and 1913 were due to the maintenance 
in power of one political party, and that it is 
still our policy, as it always has been, to have the ministers 
represent the administration rather than constitute the cul- 
minating rank of a permanent staff. Wilson's attempt to 
appoint men of training and experience to certain significant 
posts however, indicates a desire to recognize merit. 

The consular service has still more markedly improved. 
In 1864 the proposition of 1856 for the appointment of a per- 
Consuiar manent staff was revived in a very modified 

service form. Thirteen consular clerks or pupils, 

removable only with the consent of the Senate, were there- 
after to be appointed. The substitution of salaries for 
fees also made gradual progress, until it was made complete 
in 1906, with the unimportant exception of consular agents. 



IMPERIALISM AND GREAT BRITAIN 431 

Meantime the development of civil-service reform led to a 

continuous attempt to include the consular service under 

its provisions. Although this attempt has failed, it has not 

been without its results. President Cleveland announced 

a system of appointment by examination and promotion. 

Although McKinley was hardly rigid in adhering to this, 

President Roosevelt returned to it with emphasis, and tlie 

decision of President Wilson to treat the service as out of 

politics promises permanence.^ 

This administrative systematization has fortunately been 

accompanied by an effective backing of popular support. 

The industrial interests of the country have . , 

•^ . Interest m 

urged improvement, and have cooperated in consular 
bringing it about. Educational institutions 
have also responded to the national need, especially in the at- 
tention devoted to the study of modern languages, Spanish in 
particular, and in the offering of courses designed to equip 
students for consular positions. With the promise of a con- 
tinuous career, it has become possible to advise many young 
men to take up the service as a life work, and at the same 
time the position by becoming businesslike has become less 
attractive as a vacation for the exhausted politician. 

Working under these conditions, Secretary Hay under- 
took to achieve a new settlement of outstanding disputes 
with Great Britain, such as had been accom- Relations with 
plished in 1794, 1815 to 1818, 1842, and 1871. ^^^^^ ^"*^° 
The friendship of Great Britain for the United States, still 
represented at Washington by the veteran Sir Julian Paunce- 
fote, was an advantage, though it required some caution 
to prevent that friendship from becoming entangling. This 
situation became particularly delicate during the Boer war, 
but our experience in the art of neutrality prevented any 
real difficulties. The main obstacles were the now definite 
decision of the American people to have an American canal, 
and the fact that, since many of our disputes were between 
^ Civil Service Commission, Reports, annual. 



432 AMERICAN DIPLOMACY 

the United States and Canada, Great Britain was obliged 
to defer in large measure to that powerful colony. 

A commission appointed in 1898 to agree upon questions 
at issue between the United States and Canada found twelve 
Canadian dis- topics for discussion: seals, fishing, the Alaskan 
P"*®^ boundary, transit of goods through each other's 

territory back to the original country, or to a third country, 
transit of criminals, wreckage and salvage, alien labor, — 
particularly the importation of Chinese into the United 
States across the Canadian boundary, — reciprocity, mining 
rights, the navigation of the Great Lakes, and the marking 
of the boundary line. These matters the commission failed 
to settle outright, but negotiation was continuous. In 1908 
the transit of criminals, the question of wreckage and salvage, 
and the marking of the frontier were provided for. 

The more exciting question of the Alaskan boundary had 
already been settled. This had first assumed importance 
Alaskan with the discovery of gold on the Yukon in 

boundary |gQg r^j^^ dispute grew out of the treaty of 

1825 between Russia and Great Britain, and chiefly out of 
the provision that the boundary was to follow the crest 
of the mountains parallel to the coast from the parallel of 
latitude of 56 to the intersection of that line with the parallel 
of longitude of 141 , but was never to be more than ten marine 
leagues from the coast following its sinuosities. This arrange- 
ment was sufficiently complicated, but it was rendered more 
so by the deep and irregular indentations of the Alaskan 
coast line. Great Britain claimed that the line ran along 
the crests nearest the ocean, from peak to peak, crossing the 
bays, giving her the heads of several of them and thus access 
to the sea. The United States held that the line must be 
everywhere ten leagues from sea water, thus entirely cutting 
off a great part of Canada from the ocean. A inodus Vivendi 
was agreed upon in 1899, and in 1903 the question was sub- 
mitted to arbitration, but by a commission composed of 
three members from each nation, without an umpire. The 



IMPERIALISM AND GREAT BRITAIN 433 



7 

ALASKA 
BOUNDARY CONTROVERSY 

United States Claim 1903 
British Claim 1903 
— Accepted Boundary 




434 AMERICAN DIPLOMACY 

American commissioners were Senator Lodge, Elihu Root, 
and Senator Turner to represent the Northwest. Maintain- 
ing the American position in all except a few minor points, 
they were supported by Chief Justice Alverstone of England; 
and so the boundary was fixed according to our views. ^ 

The question of fishing was threefold, involving the pro- 
tection of the Alaskan seals, the securing of privileges from 
the Dominion of Canada, and the securing of 
privileges from the separate jurisdiction of 
Newfoundland. In case of the seals, the British legislation 
resulting from the Behring sea arbitration lapsed in 1899, at 
the end of the prescribed five-year period, and the sea was 
thus open to Canadians to within three miles of the Pribilof 
islands, with no limitation as to methods. In 1897 we had 
prohibited our own citizens from engaging in open-sea killing, 
but Canadian opinion would not permit Great Britain to re- 
ciprocate in any way. In the United States the feeling among 
those interested was so strong that at one time it was pro- 
posed that we kill off all the herds. It was not until the ad- 
ministration of President Taft, in 1911, that the matter was 
settled by a joint treaty with Japan, Russia, and Great 
Britain, whereby pelagic killing was for the time being alto- 
gether prohibited and these countries were to have pro rata 
shares of the kill on land. An act of Congress of 1912 pro- 
hibited all killing whatsoever on land for a term of years. 

Our fishing difficulties with Canada were settled by a 
treaty of 1908, which provided a permanent international 
Canada and fisheries commission. It was with Newfound- 
Newfoundland ij^j^^j ^jjg^^ ^he most trying situation existed, 
rendering negotiation and fresh causes of irritation constant. 
In 1902, in accordance with a new diplomatic method ac- 
cepted by Great Britain, Hay negotiated a treaty with 
Premier Bond of Newfoundland on the familiar basis of ad- 
mitting fish from the Banks to our markets free of duty in 
return for the privileges that we desired. Again, however, as 
1 George Davidson, The Alaska Boundary, San Francisco, 1903. 



IMPERIALISM AND GREAT BRITAIN 435 

in 1888, the fishing interests in the Senate were strong enough 
to defeat the treaty, by insisting that it was the national 
duty both to afford economic protection to the industry 
and to obtain such international advantages as might be 
necessary. The final defeat of this treaty in 1904 led to 
retaliatory legislation by Newfoundland in 1905 and 1906, 
in which every possible port regulation that could distress 
our fishermen was resorted to. While the governments of 
Great Britain and the United States temporarily quieted 
matters by an annual modus Vivendi, they sought agreement. 
Great Britain maintained the right of Newfoundland to 
make any port regulations which ostensibly applied to both 
nations equally, and which were in its judgment, necessary 
to the preservation of the fishing or to the maintenance of 
order and morals. The United States admitted that there 
must be such port regulations as were necessary for the pres- 
ervation of the fishing, but claimed that, as these determined 
the conditions under which she was to enjoy the privileges 
accorded to her by the treaties of 1783 and 1818, her assent 
to them was necessary. In 1909 the matter was submitted 
to a tribunal composed of members of the Hague Permanent 
Court of Arbitration, which was, in addition, to recommend 
rules for the conduct of the fishing. The decision was mainly 
in favor of Newfoundland, but in accordance with the recom- 
mendations an agreement between Great Britain and the 
United States was reached. It seems probable that this 
century-old dispute is happily ended. The Americans are 
to enjoy such privileges as the right to buy bait and take 
on necessary water, without suffering undue annoyance 
from local laws.^ 

The all-important subject of trade relations with Canada 
reached no special crisis until, in 1911, a reciprocity treaty 
was concluded under Taft's administration and largely by 
his personal influence. The rejection of this treaty as the 

^ P. T. McGrath, "The Atlantic Fisheries Dispute," Review of Reviews, 
1910, xli. 718-724. 



436 AMERICAN DIPLOMACY 

result of a nationalistic uprising in Canada and the defeat 
of the Laurier government, seemed to presage a period of still 
greater strain than in the past. Some of the 
things aimed at by reciprocity, however, the 
new United States tariff bill of 1913 accomplished without the 
exaction of specific compensation, and it may lead to a better 
understanding. Only five of the twelve questions of 1898 
remain to be settled, but in regard to all of them except 
alien labor and mining rights the existing agreements are not 
unsatisfactory. The new questions that have arisen, such as 
the use of international rivers for irrigation, seem not to be 
serious. 

The other important British interest in America has been 
the interoceanic canal. It had finally become obvious 
Clayton- that such a canal would be constructed, and 

Buiwer treaty ^Jther by, or under the auspices of, the United 
States government. Yet the Clayton-Bulwer treaty still 
held. In 1900, therefore. Hay and Pauncefote arranged a 
compact to meet these conditions. This new treaty, like 
that of Clayton and Buiwer, was based on the prin- 
ciple of international neutralization, and it asked other 
nations to join in the guarantee. As this arrangement was 
unsatisfactory to public opinion in the United States, the 
Senate amended it by specifically abrogating the Clayton- 
Bulwer treaty, by allowing the United States to fortify the 
canal, and by leaving out the general invitation to adhere 
to the agreement. In consequence of these amendments. 
Hay and Pauncefote drew up, in 1901, a new treaty providing 
for the abrogation of the Clayton-Bulwer treaty. In return 
for this concession bj^ Great Britain, which allowed the United 
States to acquire territory in Central America, the last- 
named power adopted certain prescribed rules. The second 
of these forbade the blockade of the canal, but allowed the 
United States to "maintain such military police along the 
canal as may be necessary to protect it against lawlessness 
and disorder." Under a rather liberal interpretation of this 



IMPERIALISM AND GREAT BRITAIN 437 

permission, the United States plans to fortify the canal 

in the hope of rendering it impregnable to attack. Rules 

three to six regulated the use of the canal in time of war. 

Rule one ran: "The canal shall be free and open to the 

vessels of commerce and of war of all nations observing these 

Rules, on terms of entire equalit^^ so that there shall be no 

discrimination against any such nation, or its citizens or 

subjects, in respect of the conditions or charges of traffic, 

or otherwise. Such conditions and charges of traffic shall 

be just and equitable." 

This last rule became the subject of much controversy 

after 1912, when Congress, in fixing the rates of traffic, 

exempted from all charge vessels engaging ^ , „ 
, . ,. , ® , & t. & Canal tolls 

under certam conditions in the coastwise, or 

rather coast-to-coast, trade of the United States. Primarily 
intended to decrease the cost of transcontinental freight, and 
to have its effect on the rates of the transcontinental rail- 
roads, the law plainly violated the provisions of the treaty. 
Great Britain promptly protested, and President Wilson in 
1914 recommended that Congress repeal the discriminating 
exemption. The acceptance of the recommendation by Con- 
gress was a notable manifestation of our intention of rec- 
ognizing treaty rights. 

It is not only in thus preventing our carrying out of a 
domestic policy that the Hay-Pauncefote treaty has proved 
a stumbling-block in our way. The purpose Military use of 
of our change of canal policy was not so much ® "^^ 
commercial as military. A canal internationally guaranteed 
would need no fortification, but would be equally available 
to all nations. The policy of making the canal American 
involved the expense of fortifying it and of maintaining a 
garrison there, the compensation being that our fleet could 
do double duty, could be available for use in either ocean. 
By the terms of the treaty, however, it is probable that the 
value of any other fleet with which we may be contending 
will equally be doubled, as the canal is open to the war 



438 AMERICAN DIPLOMACY 

vessels of other nations even when at war with us, if those 
nations observe the rules laid down in the treaty. This 
being the case, it might seem that, since we are not allowed 
to exclude their war vessels, we need not be at the expense 
of fortification. In the absence of the international guarantee 
arranged for in the Clayton-Bulwer treaty and in the first 
Hay-Pauncefote treaty, however, it is obvious that the only 
means we have of seeing that the rules are observed is the 
ability to enforce them on the spot. By the terms of agree- 
ment all we have secured by our canal diplomacy is the 
obligation to maintain by our own power, and without any 
compensating exclusive use, a neutrality which the nations 
of the world would have been glad to guarantee. The canal 
has become a vulnerable spot, at the mercy of any power 
able to seize it, except Great Britain which is bound by the 
treaty. Authority and power are of course not synonymous. 
Having made use of our right to acquire territory and to 
fortify the canal, we have acquired the power to exclude 
other nations, if we care to disregard our treaty obligations. 
Such disregard, however, is always provocative of trouble, 
and may be dangerous. The experience of the United States 
with the Clayton-Bulwer treaty should emphasize the ad- 
vice of Washington and Jefferson, to avoid entangling alli- 
ances, if we wish to maintain our freedom to change our mind. 
It is apparent that the questions at issue between Great 
Britain and the United States have since the Spanish war 
been much less critical than those of earlier periods, that 
most of them have been settled, and that the difficulties 
of the future are likely to be of diminishing significance. 



CHAPTER XXXI 
SPANISH AMERICA 

In clarifying her relations with Great Britain, the United 
States removed only one diplomatic obstacle from the path 
of the canal. It remained for her to decide Nicaragua ver- 
whether she wished a canal by way of Nicaragua ^"^ Panama 
or of Panama, and then to make arrangements with the 
nation that owned the chosen isthmus. In Congress there 
was a strong sentiment in favor of the former way, and 
Nicaragua was willing to grant us such conditions as we con- 
sidered necessary. By the Spooner act of 1902, however, 
the President was authorized to proceed with the Panama 
route, which he preferred, if he could make satisfactory ar- 
rangements within a reasonable time. President Roosevelt 
determined to build the canal by Panama, and he at once 
made the enterprise his particular policy. The first step was 
to obtain the concession which was still legally held by the 
successor of de Lesseps's company. This was bought for forty 
million dollars, and title to the Panama railroad was sub- 
sequently purchased. 

More difiicult was the negotiation with the republic of Co- 
lombia, of which Panama was one of the constituent states. 
We regarded as essential to the construction Position of 
and operation of the canal full possession of a Colombia 
strip of territory on each side, with ample rights of fortifica- 
tion and police, and for this we were willing to pay. Hay ac- 
cordingly arranged a satisfactory treaty with Herran, the Co- 
lombian minister, giving us, not sovereignty, but control for 
ninety-nine years, with privileges of renewal, of a six-mile 
strip. After four months' debate, however, this treaty was 
rejected by the Colombian senate in July, 1903. Although 

439 



440 AMERICAN DIPLOMACY 

Colombia had a perfect right to do this, and though her 
motives were not properly open to question, President Roose- 
velt prepared to act without her assent. He ordered our 
minister to leave Bogota, and prepared a message proposing 
to Congress that we begin to dig the canal. He argued, or 
at least asserted, that Colombia, in rejecting a reasonable 
and generous offer, had violated the treaty of 1846. He 
believed that her motive was to obtain more money, and de- 
clared that the world could wait no longer on her sloth and 
avarice. An agreement, he believed, might be made with the 
state of Panama.^ 

To those who are ready for the fray weapons are sent. Like 
Polk, Roosevelt was able, when Congress met, to present a 
The state of simpler course, for which, however, unlike 
Panama Polk, he did not have to incur the direct re- 

sponsibility. Not unnaturally, the citizens of Panama were 
deeply incensed that their only prospect for future greatness 
was likely to be blocked, perhaps forever if the Nicaraguan 
route should be chosen. The situation was attractive to 
adventurers, and offered all the possibilities of intrigue famil- 
iar to the readers of Richard Harding Davis. WTien in 
August, 1903, it was announced that Panama would revolt, 
the attitude of the United States government was not such 
as to discourage action. 

October 10, 1903, President Roosevelt wrote to Dr. Albert 
Shaw, editor of the Review of Reviews: "I enclose you, purely 
Roosevelt's for your own information, a copy of a letter of 
P°^*^y September 5th, from our minister to Colombia. 

I think it might interest you to see that there was absolutely 
not the slightest chance of securing by treaty any more than 
we endeavored to secure. The alternatives were to go to 
Nicaragua against the advice of the great majority of com- 
petent engineers — some of the most competent saying that 

^ W. L. Scruggs, The Colombian and Venezuelan Repjiblics, Boston, 1900; 
Achille Viallate, Leu Etats-Unis ct le canal interoceanique, in his Essaia 
d'histoire diplomatique amSricaine (Paris, 1905), 57-206. 



SPANISH AMERICA 441 

we had better have no canal at this time than go there — or 

else to take the territory by force without any attempt at 

getting a treaty. I cast aside the proposition made at this 

time to foment the secession of Panama. Whatever other 

governments can do, the United States cannot go into the 

securing by such underhand means the cession. Privately, 

I freely say to you that I should be delighted if Panama were 

an independent state; or if it made itself so at this moment; 

but for me to say so publicly would amount to an instigation 

of a revolt, and therefore I cannot say it." ^ 

Fully alert to the possibilities, the administration watched 

the Isthmus. November 2 the naval oflBcer commanding 

our observation squadron was ordered: "Main- „. j • • 
^ , The adminis- 

tain free and uninterrupted transit. . . . Pre- tration and the 
vent landing of any armed force with hostile 
intent, either government or insurgent, either at Colon, 
Porto Bello, or other point." At 3.40 p. m., November 3, 
the acting secretary of state telegraphed to the Isthmus that 
an uprising was reported to be taking place there. A repty of 
8.15 p. M. stated that there had been none yet, but that it was 
rumored that there would be one during the night. On Nov- 
ember 4 independence was proclaimed. The only active hos- 
tility was in the city of Panama, on the Pacific, beyond our 
reach, where the Colombian gunboat Bogota dropped a few 
shells on the morning of the 4th and killed a Chinaman. At 
noon we warned the commander to shell no more. At 
11.55 A. M. on November 6, the state department was in- 
formed: "The situation is peaceful. Isthmian movement has 
obtained so far success. Colon and interior provinces have 
enthusiastically joined independence. Not any Colombian 
soldiers known on isthmian soil at present. Padillo equipped 
to pursue Bogota. Bunau Varilla has been appointed officially 
confidential agent of the Republic of Panama at Washington." 
At 12.51 p. M. Hay acknowledged the receipt of this note.^ 

1 Nation, 1904, Ixxix. 328. 

2 Senate Docs., 58 Cong. 2 sess., No. 51. 



442 AMERICAN DIPLOMACY 

On the same day Hay instructed our acting consul on the 
spot to negotiate with the new government. November 13 
Recognition of Bunau VariUa was received at Washington; 
Panama December 7 a treaty, drawn up by Hay, was 

signed; December 12 a minister was appointed. This quick 
recognition of the new repubhc was contrary to our consistent 
practice of waiting till independence was soundly established, 
as illustrated by our conduct in relation to the Spanish- 
American revolutions from Spain, the Texan revolution, and 
the government of Maximilian, and as emphasized by our 
attitude toward the contemplated recognition of the Con- 
federacy. To be sure, the Isthmus was quiet; but it was 
because we had prevented the Colombian forces, amply 
able to restore order, from intervening. Such interposition 
on our part was not, as President Roosevelt subsequently 
claimed it was, in accordance with local precedents.^ We had 
a number of times, under the treaty of 1846, landed troops 
to protect the railroad, but we had successfully protected 
it without occupying the whole Isthmus. Senator Hoar 
seems to have been justified in his statement of December 17, 
1903, that no revolution had up to that date interfered with 
the isthmian traffic.^ Such previous interventions, more- 
over, had been to carry out the treaty; in this case the pur- 
pose was to overthrow it. In compensation for the right of 
free transit we had guaranteed the Isthmus to Colombia, 
we now intervened to prevent Colombia from enforcing her 
sovereignty. These points were cleverly met by Roosevelt 
in his message to Congress, and by Hay in his correspondence 
relating to the episode. They urged among other things that 
the validity of the union of the several states of the Colom- 
bian republic, and particularly of Panama, was extremely 
complicated from a constitutional point of view. The rela- 
tion of Panama to Colombia had actually varied from inde- 
pendence to incorporation as a department. To suggest that 

^ House Docs., 58 Cong. 2 sess., No. 1. 

2 Congressional Record, 58 Cong. 2 sess., pp. 316-318; 2191-2000. 



SPANISH AMERICA 443 

an outside power might take cognizance of such internal con- 
ditions was of course obviously inconsistent with our policy, 
and before the Civil War cemented our own union would have 
been dangerous. It was not, however, the real defense upon 
which the administration relied. Its real excuse was, rather, 
the plea by which Jefferson justified to himself the Louisiana 
purchase, a transaction so contrary to his constitutional scru- 
ples, — the plea that the situation was one which never could 
happen again, and was of such unparalleled importance as to 
exempt it from the ordinary laws of morality and of nations. 
The new republic met our needs more completely than 
Senor Herran had done. The United States received full 
rights, as "if it were the sovereign," of "a zone The repubUc 
five miles on each side" of the canal; she Se^TrSed°** 
also secured the right to fortify the canal, and States 
to obtain additional naval stations within the republic. In 
return she paid ten million dollars down, and agreed to pay a 
quarter of a million a year, beginning nine years from date. 
The United States guaranteed the independence of Panama. 
The constitution of Panama contains the following clause: 
"The Government of the United States of America may 
intervene anywhere in the Republic of Panama for the re- 
establishment of constitutional peace and order if this should 
be disturbed, provided that by virtue of public treaty said 
nation should assume or have assumed to guarantee the in- 
dependence and sovereignty of this Republic." Though our 
guarantee was made in the light of this clause, intervention 
is merely a right that has been granted to us, not a duty that 
we have assumed. Yet it can hardly be denied that by the 
events of 1903 we acquired in the canal zone a colony, and 
in Panama a protectorate. It is worth noting that between 
1846 and 1903 there were fifty-three riots and revolutions on 
the isthmus, and since then, peace. ^ 

^ Aragon, Republica de Panama y la diplomacia contemporanea, Revista 
Positivista (Mexico), 1904; Schurz, Speeches, etc., vi. 389-403, 434-436; 
Rafael Reyes, The Two Americas, New York, 1914. 



444 AMERICAN DIPLOMACY 

Until the Spanish war it had been one of our unreaHzed 
ambitions to dominate the Gulf of Mexico, and thus secure 
Control of the the outlet of the Mississippi. Although we 
Caribbean Sea failed to win Cuba in that war, we obtained 
enough hold on that island to give us the control we wished, 
a control which has recently been strengthened by the com- 
pletion of the railroad to Key West. With the undertaking 
of the canal as a national enterprise, the control of the Car- 
ibbean became equally necessary. By 1903 we had already, 
with our naval station at Guantanamo in Cuba, in addition 
to Porto Rico and Panama, a strategic preponderance in 
that sea which it has been the apparent intention of the 
government to maintain and strengthen. The only danger 
lies in the possibility of European influence over some of the 
republics situated about it, a peril that has involved a careful 
consideration of the exact bearing of the Monroe Doctrine 
upon the situation. 

European interference with the political affairs of those 
states it obviously remains our intention to prevent, and 
European this policy doubtless extends to the exclusion 

mediation q£ European mediation in the case of a revolu- 

tionary contest in any one of them, a policy underlying our 
present (1915) attitude with respect to Mexico. Other pos- 
sible avenues of European approach would be mediation 
between two warring republics, and the collection of claims. 
With regard to the first, no case has yet arisen clearly indi- 
cating whether the administration would follow the earlier 
practice of allowing mediation, or whether it would adopt 
Blaine's policy of discouraging it, or whether we would ab- 
solutely prevent it. There can be no doubt, however, that 
in any such case our own good offices would be promptly 
offered, and that we should resent their rejection in favor of 
any other country. The existence of the Permanent Court at 
The Hague, estabHshed in 1899, has simpHfied this problem 
by providing a recourse equally acceptable to Europe and 
America. 





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44G AMERICAN DIPLOMACY 

The question of claims is more difficult and important. 
These are of two kinds. One rests upon the duty of every 
European government to protect with all its power the 

^^^^^ lives of its citizens legally resident in a foreign 

country. The recent (1914) attitude of the Wilson adminis- 
tration in connection with the killing of a British subject, 
Benton, by the Mexican revolutionists indicates that we 
do not assume responsibility in such cases, but that under 
certain circumstances we do undertake to act as intermediary. 
The question of property is a different one; or at least, if the 
destruction of personal and tangible property is analogous 
to the destruction of life, that of public debts may be differ- 
entiated. Such debts give rise to many perplexing questions. 
They are sometimes contracted by governments that fail 
to establish themselves; through non-payment of interest 
many of them, as those of Santo Domingo and Honduras, 
mount to proportions beyond any immediate possibility 
of payment; and, worse still, being in most cases contracted 
for temporary purposes, they have not usually increased the 
capacity of the debtor countries to meet them. 

In 1902 Luis M. Drago, foreign minister of Argentina, pre- 
sented to the United States government the view that "the 
Drago Doc- public debt cannot occasion armed intervention 
*"°® nor even the actual occupation of the territory 

of American nations by a European power." ^ This "Drago 
Doctrine" was a slight modification of the principle advanced 
by his fellow country-man, Carlos Calvo, that "the collection 
of pecuniary claims made by the citizens of one country 
against the government of another country should never be 
made by force." It has excited much discussion among dip- 
lomats and students of international law. It is true, how- 
ever, that capitalists have in the past loaned money with the 
expectation that their own country would if necessary help 
them collect it, and that the borrowing countries have in con- 
sequence received more than they otherwise would have done 
' House Docs., 58 Cong. 2 sess., No. 1, p. 4. 



SPANISH AMERICA 447 

and at lower Interest rates. Hay refused to accept Drago's 
views, and in the case of Venezuela, which called forth the 
suggestion, failed also to take the position assumed by Blaine 
in 1881 with reference to the same country. He did not pro- 
test, as in many previous similar cases we had Forcible col- 
not protested, at the blockade of the Vene- lection of debts 
zuelan coast by a joint German, British, and Italian squadron. 
It is important to observe, however, that the United States 
was fully and officially informed that this blockade was for 
the sole purpose of collecting the claims in question, which 
included both government loans and destruction of private 
property; and that the matter was submitted to arbitration 
at our suggestion and by our active assistance. In 1907 the 
United States submitted the Drago Doctrine to the Hague 
Conference, in the modified form, that force should not be 
used in such cases unless the creditor nation had first pro- 
posed arbitration and this had been refused or ignored by 
the nation against which the claim was made. In this form 
it was endorsed by the Conference. 

The possibilities of such interference, particularly when 
the debts were obviously beyond the unassisted resources 

of the debtor country, excited much anxiety „ 

• 1 XT • 1 o A 1 • , Roosevelt's 

in the United States. So long as we recognized doctrine of 

the principle of the forcible collection of debts, "^^ power 

the only method of preventing the occasional, and perhaps 
at times long-continued, presence of foreign fleets in American 
waters was to assume the duty of collection ourselves. 
Even the Drago Doctrine would not prevent the enforce- 
ment of claims for the destruction of private property. In 
messages of 1903 and 1904 President Roosevelt said: "That 
our rights and interests are deeply concerned in the main- 
tenance of the [Monroe] Doctrine is so clear as hardly to 
need argument. This is especially true in view of the con- 
struction of the Panama Canal. As a mere matter of self- 
defence we must exercise a close watch over the approaches 
to this canal, and this means we must be thoroughly alive 



448 AMERICAN DIPLOMACY 

to our interests in the Caribbean Sea." "When we announce 
a policy, such as the Monroe Doctrine, we thereby commit 
ourselves to the consequences of the policy." . . . "Chronic 
wrongdoing, or an impotence which results in a general 
loosening of the ties of civilized society, may m America, 
as elsewhere, ultimately require intervention by some civilized 
nation, and in the Western Hemisphere the adherence of 
the United States to the Monroe Doctrine may force the 
United States, however reluctantly, in flagrant cases of such 
wrongdoing or impotence, to the exercise of an international 
police power." 

This policy of intervention to prevent wrongdoing, whether 
to our own citizens or to those of other countries, resembled 
The " Big the policy advocated by Blaine. The absence 

^^*^^" of any sugar-coating in its pronouncement, 

however, justifies the popular differentiation in terms, 
Blaine's being known as the "Elder Sister" policy and 
Roosevelt's as the "Big Stick." 

The conspicuous example of this new extension of the 
Monroe Doctrine — our assumption of responsibility for the 
Santo Do- good behavior of Latin iVmerica — occurred in 
™^°^° the case of the negro republic of Santo Do- 

mingo. In 1905 President Roosevelt made a treaty with its 
government whereby we were to undertake the adjustment of 
its obligations and the administration of its customs houses. 
This agreement was not ratified at once, or in its first form, by 
the Senate, but in 1907 a convention which preserved the 
main features of the plan was accepted. 

This action added, at any rate for the time being, a new 
protectorate to our list, and thereby increased our territorial 
New protec- hold on the Caribbean. In 1911 somewhat 
*°'^^^^ similar arrangements were made by Secretary 

Knox with Nicaragua and Honduras. Although circum- 
stances have thus far prevented their execution, the drawing 
up of a new treaty with Nicaragua, on practically the same 
basis, by Secretary Bryan in 1913 indicates that such trustee- 



SPANISH AMERICA 449 

ship may be regarded as an accepted national policy. While 
we do not absolutely prohibit European intervention for 
the collection of debts, we aim to make such intervention 
unnecessary by acting as intermediary. 

The "Big Stick" has also been evident in the frequent 
and penetrating applications of our police power for the 
defence of our own interests. In Cuba, by United States 
intervening in 1908 and by threatening in- "^tervention 
tervention in 1912, we have, in accordance with the Piatt 
amendment, insisted on peace and order. In Venezuela we 
threatened to use force to establish our claims, which were 
subsequently submitted to the Hague conference. We 
forcibly intervened in Honduras, and have continually 
used force in Nicaragua in the hope of establishing peace. 
In the case of the latter country, at least, we have ourselves 
exercised a latitude of interference which we would not 
permit to European powers without vigorous protest. It 
remains the theory of the United States that such inter- 
vention shall not control the right of the people to constitute 
their own government, but we approach the position of 
insisting that they shall have a stable government. So far as 
European powers are concerned, we do not prohibit their 
intervention to protect the lives and property of their sub- 
jects; but we insist, as against them, that their intervention 
shall be strictly confined to that purpose, and as against the 
American nation involved, that it shall be in a condition to 
render such intervention unnecessary. 

It is not, however, European nations alone that we wish 

to keep from interference in American affairs. With the 

rise to power of Japan and the immense po- , , 

. . ... Japan and 

tentialities of immigration from that country Magdalena 

and from China, the attitude of these countries 

toward America has become a matter of concern. There is 

no doubt that we shall apply to them all the prohibitions 

that we maintain against Europe, although in their case we 

have not the justification of non-interference in Asia. It 



450 AMERICAN DIPLOMACY 

was, moreover, with special reference to Japan that a new 
corollary of the Monroe Doctrine was proposed in 1912. 
This was in the form of a resolution presented by Senator 
Lodge, declaring that, "When any harbor or other place 
in the American continents is so situated that the occupa- 
tion thereof for naval or military purposes might threaten 
the communication or the safety of the United States, the 
government of the United States could not see, without 
grave concern, the possession of such harbor or other place 
by any corporation or association which has such relations 
to another government not American as to give that govern- 
ment practical power of control for naval or military pur- 
poses." Though passed by a vote of 51 to 4, it was not, 
however, accepted by President Taft. In 1913 President 
Wilson attempted to put it upon less nationalistic grounds 
by enlarging its scope so as to make it extend to an opposition 
to all special "concessions" to foreign syndicates, for it is 
his belief that capital should find ample protection in the 
general laws of a country, and that, if it cannot, its invest- 
ment will inevitably lead to political complications such 
as we wish to avoid. His attitude seems already to have 
prevented the execution of the plan of the English Pearson 
syndicate in Colombia. A still further method of meeting 
this situation has been developed by the attempt to secure 
for the United States a preemption of all possible inter- 
oceanic canal routes in America. Those of Nicaragua and 
Colombia are now covered by treaties with those countries, 
which are as yet (1915) unratified. 

The intensification of the Monroe Doctrine since the 
Spanish war has been confined, as to fact, to the Caribbean. 
Scope of new Dr. Shaw, of the Rcvieio of Revieios, and very 
policies close to President Roosevelt, wrote editorially, 

"Control of the canal and dominance in the Caribbean Sea 
would suffice to assure the Monroe Doctrine." It is not to 
be supposed that the administration intended to withdraw 
the Monroe Doctrine from connection with the more southern 



SPANISH AMERICA 451 

countries; but it certainly did not actually apply to them its 

additions to that doctrine, which was in part due to the fact 

that their governments were more firmly established than 

those about the Caribbean. President Roosevelt said in 

1904, "Any country whose people conduct themselves well 

can count upon our hearty friendship." We helped mediate 

between Chili and Argentine, but we did not protest when in 

1902 they made Edward VII. arbiter in their disputes, and 

we accepted in 1909 the same monarch, and later George V, 

as arbiter between Chili and the United States. 

All Spanish America, however, has been included in our 

attempts to establish continental cooperation. In 1907, at 

our initiative joined with that of Mexico, the _ , ^. 

/ / Relations with 

Central- American states agreed to a series of Spanish Amer- 
treaties and conventions establishing a court 
of arbitration, and looking toward a renewal of that union 
which existed for a few years after their separation from 
Spain. Andrew Carnegie presented them with a palace at 
San Jose, in Costa Rica, for the use of their court. 

In 1899 President McKinley proposed a second Pan- 
American congress, and we endeavored to popularize the 
idea by the holding of a Pan-American exposi- Pan-American 
tion at Buffalo m 1901. It was there that congresses 
President McKinley met his death, but as a result of his 
initiative a congress was held in 1901 at the City of Mexico. 
This congress put on record a number of far-reaching resolu- 
tions and adopted a few useful regulations, its most important 
undertaking being an effort to make the meeting of such con- 
gresses regular. The result is that they have since then been 
held every five years, the third — the second of the new series 
— at Rio Janeiro in 1906 and the next at Santiago of Chili 
in 1911. Although these congresses have steadily improved 
the conditions of international intercourse, they cannot be 
said to have led to any marked advance toward our goals 
of trade supremacy and sympathetic understanding. Our 
trade has grown, to be sure, and with it our regular steam- 



452 AMERICAN DIPLOMACY 

ship connection. It still, however, consists chiefly of impor- 
tations, many of them brought to us by tramp steamers, 
which, arriving in New York, take on an American cargo for 
Europe, where they load with manufactured goods for South 
America. Our exports, except those that go to countries 
near by, like Mexico, have not generally equalled those of 
Great Britain nor has their growth kept pace with those of 
Germany and Belgium.^ 

Sympathy cannot exist without interest, and interest is 
languid in the United States, where news from every part of 
Lack of in- the world is presented more voluminously 
part^ of°^he ^ ^^^ read more eagerly than that from any 
United States p^Tt of Spanish America, except, again, Mexico. 
Among the Spanish Americans there is plenty of interest in 
us, but not understanding, or at least kindly understanding. 
The aggressions of the United States against Spain and 
Colombia, her decided firmness in dealing with the countries 
of the Caribbean, the threatening and condescending lan- 
guage of President Roosevelt, far from changing the opinion 
that a majority of their public men have always held in 
regard to us, have only confirmed it. They still fear our 
continued aggression, a fear from which the repeated asser- 
tions of Roosevelt and of Wilson fail to free them. In addi- 
tion, the powerful and firmly established governments of 
Argentina, Brazil, and Chili resent the arrogance of our tone. 

c, ... They feel no necessity for the defence of the 

Suspicion in "^ , "^ . 

Spanish Monroe Doctrme; they deny the assertion that 

our fiat is law upon the American continents, 
while they realize that in fact that is the basis of our action. 
It was with the idea of quieting this apprehension and sensi- 
tiveness that Root in 1906, while still secretary of state, 
visited South America, and that Secretary Knox in 1912 
visited the Caribbean states, omitting Colombia by request. 
It is said to have been with the intention of counteracting the 
effect of the "Big Stick" on the minds of the people of the 
* Bureau of the American Republics, Annual Reports, 1891, etc. 



SPANISH AMERICA 453 

great South- American powers that Ex-President Roosevelt 
undertook his journey to South America in 1913-14. Never- 
theless, our not unnatural refusal to submit our differences 
growing out of the treaty of 1846 and the revolution in Pan- 
ama to arbitration by the Hague court, remains a stumbling- 
block. Secretary Knox endeavored to appease Colombia 
by a treaty granting her financial compensation and gaining 
for us control of a possible canal route though her territory. 
Secretary Bryan succeeded in making such a treaty, which 
added an expression of our regret that misunderstandings 
had arisen. This treaty, however, has not yet been approved 
by the Senate.^ 

^ For a recent and clear-headed discussion of the whole subject see 
John Bigelow, American Policy: The Western Hemisphere in Its Relation to 
the Eastern, New York, 1915; cf. R. G. Usher, Pan-Americanism, New York, 
1915. 



CHAPTER XXXII 
THE PACIFIC 

Into the diplomacy of the Pacific the new regime plunged 
joyously, stripped of past policies and entangling alliances. 
New start in By our treaty of 1894 with Japan and the 
the Pacific return of the Simonoseki indemnity we had 

freed ourselves from the consequences of joint action under 
Seward and Fish, and by the division of Samoa from the 
complications of the General Act of Berlin. From the con- 
sequences of our situation, however, we were not so free. 
No other country possessed so much Pacific coast-line as we 
did : the North Pacific was strategically ours. Our possessions 
were widely scattered, however, and, in spite of the attempts 
of Congress, by customs duties and by education, to knit 
them together, they could not be held apart from the current 
of Asian development. We were forced to become participants 
in the affairs of the Far East.^ 

We found there England, France, Germany, and Russia, 
all strongly entrenched in commerce and territory. Japan, 
International modem and ambitious, was already by the 
situation jjgjp Qf i^gj. geographical position a great power. 

China, inert but containing no one knew what possibilities of 
greatness, was prey about which the others hovered ex- 
pectantly but somewhat gingerly. With Japan it was a 
question of dealing as with an equal. With China the ques- 
tion was less of dealing with her than about her, and it 
was quickly evident that our only choice was between be- 

' Latane, America as a World Power ; J. W. Foster, American Diplomacy in 
the Orient, Boston, t'tc, 1903; Coolidgc, The United Slates an a World Power, 
313-374; A. T. Muhan, The Interest of America in International Conditions, 
Boston, 1910; T. J. Lawrence, War and Neutrality in tlie Far East, id edition, 
London, etc., 1904. 

454 



THE PACIFIC 455 

coming one of the concert of powers or leaving them to ap- 
portion the empire according to their desires. 

In 1898 Germany secured by lease from China the port 
of Kiauchau, Russia got in the same way Port Arthur and 
Talien-wan, France, Kwangchau Bay, Great «« Spheres " of 
Britain, Wei-hai-wei and Mirs Bay, and Italy i^uence 
obtained the right to develop the port of Sanmun, Japan, as 
a result of her recent war with China, had already obtained 
the separation of Corea from Chinese jurisdiction. In these 
transactions, the United States took no part, though she 
temporarily profited by the opening of these places to 
trade. It was believed, however, that these leased ports 
might become the centres of spheres of influence, the com- 
mercial advantages of which the respective powers would 
seek to monopolize. On the possibility, therefore, that we 
might be deprived of our natural share of Chinese commerce. 
Hay, on September 6, 1899, instructed our ambassadors at 
London, Berlin, and St. Petersburg to ask for declarations 
in favor of open trade. 

Meantime there began in China a religious and conserva- 
tive movement against the "foreign devils," and particularly 
against the missionaries. Sweeping all before « Boxer " 
them, and winning the support of the empress t'o"^^®^ 
dowager, the "Boxers" got possession of Peking and be- 
sieged the foreign embassies. Under such circumstances 
the only possible policy for the United States was to join with 
the other powers in a military expedition for the relief of the 
legations. That relief once effected, however, there were 
untold possibilities of further interference. The lives and 
property of individuals, particularly of missionaries, must 
be atoned for in some manner that would render a recurrence 
of a similar movement unlikely. France, as protector of 
Catholics in the Orient, might demand indemnity for the 
native Christians slain; and such demands might easily 
assume a bulk that would render payment impossible ex- 
cept by cession of territory, or they might take the form 



456 AMERICAN DIPLOMACY 

of putting the empire in a straight-jacket. With these pos- 
sibihties in mind, Hay determined to assume the advantage 
, of leadership, and on July 3, 1900, announced 
China and the the policy of the United States. "If wrong be 
done to our citizens," he declared, "we pro- 
pose to hold the responsible authors to the uttermost ac- 
countability." Peking being in anarchy, the power and 
responsibility "are practically devolved upon the local pro- 
vincial authorities. So long as they are not in overt col- 
lusion with rebellion and use their power to protect foreign 
life and property, we regard them as representing the Chinese 
people, with whom we seek to remain in peace and friend- 
ship." The President will cooperate with the powers in pro- 
tecting American interests, and "in aiding to prevent a 
spread of the disorders to the other provinces of the Empire 
and a recurrence of such disasters. It is of course too early 
to forecast the means of attaining this last result; but the 
policy of the Government of the United States is to seek a 
solution which may bring about permanent safety and peace 
to China, preserve Chinese territorial and administrative 
entity, protect all rights guaranteed to friendly powers by 
treaty and international law, and safeguard for the world 
the principle of equal and impartial trade with all parts of the 
Chinese Empire." To this policy he invited the powers to 
adhere by similar declarations. 

The two fundamental ideas of this circular note, which 
was sent to Berlin, Brussels, The Hague, Lisbon, London, 
Hay's leader- Madrid, Paris, Rome, St. Petersburg, Tokio, 
^'"P and Vienna, were the preservation of the 

territorial and administrative entity of China, and the "open 
door" to the world's trade. These ideas have become almost 
as firmly established in the American mind with regard to 
China, as the Monroe Doctrine is with regard to America. 
Furthermore, by his prompt action and especially by the 
manner of it. Secretary Hay established a leadership in the 
concert of powers which, although entirely temporary and 



THE PACIFIC 457 

personal, gave dignity and power to our appearance in this 
new relationship. He succeeded in establishing a reputation 
for being a man of his word similar and equal to that which 
Franklin had enjoyed, and he knew how to seize upon that 
exact moment when international opinion rendered the carry- 
ing out of an idea practical but needed a strong and respected 
leader to make itseK effective. He had learned from Lincoln 
to step ahead of the crowd without ceasing to step with it. 
His thorough acquaintance with diplomacy as it existed, did 
not blind him to new currents of thought as yet little recog- 
nized by diplomatic staffs, but destined to shape their 
activities. The powers promptly concurred in disclaiming 
any desire to partition China, and some of them admitted 
the principle of the "open door." On this basis the ex- 
pedition for the relief of the legation in Peking was under- 
taken. 

The matter of negotiation, involving first an agreement be- 
tween the powers and then a joint negotiation with China, was 
difficult, but it was ably handled, the United 
States being represented by E. H. Conger of China's 
and W. W. Rockhill, and China by Prince ^^^^"^ 
Ching and Li Hung Chang. The Chinese agreed, Septem- 
ber 7, 1901, to make expiatory punishments and memorials, 
to pay an indemnity, and to improve the facilities of com- 
munication; both the physical route to Peking and the organ- 
ization of the foreign office. Rockliill, the special com- 
missioner, reported to Hay, November 30, 1901: "While 
we maintained complete independence, we were able to act 
harmoniously in the concert of powers ... we retained the 
friendship of all the negotiating powers, exerted a salutary 
influence in the cause of moderation, humanity, and justice, 
secured adequate reparation for wrongs done our citizens, 
guaranties for their future protection, and labored success- 
fully in the interests of the whole world in the cause of 
equal and impartial trade with all parts of the Chinese 
Empire." 



458 AMERICAN DIPLOMACY 

Our cooperation in the expedition against the Boxers 

not only assisted in preserving the territorial integrity of 

_ ,.. , , China, but helped establish the principle of 

Establishment , ,, , ,, -rr i i i i i 

of the " Open the open door. Hay had asked the assent 

°°^ of the powers that had spheres of influence in 

China to three propositions, — that treaty ports within leased 
territory be not interfered with, that the tariff charged be that 
of China and be under Chinese administration, unless the 
leased ports were made "free " of all duties, and that no dis- 
criminating harbor dues or transportation charges be levied 
in such "spheres." To these propositions he had, by De- 
cember, 1899, secured the adhesion of France, Germany, 
Great Britain, Italy, Japan, and Russia, although the latter 
country was somewhat guarded in its commitment. By 
thus establishing these important items he confirmed his 
leadership in the development of the policy of the powers 
toward China. 

On February 8, 1904, Hay again assumed leadership by 
inviting Germany, Great Britain, and France to unite with 
The United the United States in urging Japan and Russia 
lusso-jap-*^^ to recognize the neutrality of China in the war 
anese war which they were beginning, and to localize hos- 

tilities within fixed limits. This effort was successful. In 
January, 1905, Russia announced to us that China was not 
neutral and could not preserve neutrality; hence that she 
should be forced to consider Chinese neutrality "from the 
standpoint of her own interests." Mr. Hay was able to 
convince Russia of the inexpediency of such action. His 
circular note of January 10, 1905, setting forth our hope 
that the war would not result in any "concession of Chinese 
territory to neutral powers," brought equivalent disclaimers 
from Germany, Austria-Hungary, France, Great Britain, 
and Italy. The culmination of this leadership was reached 
in President Roosevelt's offer, in 1905, of our good offices 
to bring the war to a close. In the treaty of Portsmouth, 
which concluded it, both the territorial and the administra- 



THE PACIFIC 459 

tive entity of China, as well as the policy of the "open door," 
were formally respected, although a way was left for their 
subsequent violation in spirit. 

Philander C. Knox, who became secretary of state in 
1909, carried out this policy by a circular note of 1912 pro- 
posing non-intervention in the Chinese revolu- Non-interven- 
tion, then in progress. Although such was the *'°° "^ ^^°* 
actual conduct of most of the powers, the action of Russia in 
recognizing the independence of Mongolia before acknowl- 
edging the new government of China was an ominous ex- 
ception; while the attitude of Great Britain with reference 
to Tibet and that of Japan in Manchuria have long consti- 
tuted false notes in the concert for the preservation of China's 
territorial and administrative integrity. Japan's action 
has also threatened the openness of trade. 

Secretary Knox, however, devoted most of his attention 
to securing opportunities for American capital to share in 
the development of Chinese resources. This "Dollar" 
movement, popularly known as "dollar" po^acy 
diplomacy, though not confined to China, was most impor- 
tant there. His treaty of 1911 with Honduras was based on 
the assumption of the foreign debt of that country by an 
American syndicate, headed by J. P. Morgan, in return for 
concessions. In 1910 he attempted to have the Manchurian 
railroads turned over to a syndicate, and urged China to 
grant to an Anglo-American body concessions in the same 
province. These attempts were unsuccessful, but an Anglo- 
American, French, and German company received a con- 
cession to build a railroad in the Yangtse valley. His most 
important effort, however, was to secure a right for the United 
States to participate in the loan required by the new govern- 
ment in 1912. 

As finally arranged, this loan was to be shared equally 
by the bankers of Great Britain, France, Germany, Japan, 
Russia, and the United States. If its political character was 
not rendered sufficiently obvious by the inclusion of Japan 



460 AMERICAN DIPLOMACY 

and Russia, which had no money to lend, it was written 
plainly enough in the terms upon which the credit was 
" Six power " to be given to China. That government, 
'°^° though anxious for the money, was unwilling 

to be bound by the engagements proposed, a hesitation 
which probably caused recognition of the Chinese republic 
to be withheld in order that pressure might be brought to 
United States bear upon it. On March 18, 1913, President 
from ^"lix Wilson reversed this policy. He led the way 

power " loan jjj i]^q recognition of the new republic, and 
withdrew the government support from the "six power" 
loan. "The conditions of the loan," he said, "seem to us 
to touch very nearly the administrative independence of 
China itself, and this administration does not feel that 
it ought, even by implication, to be a party to those con- 
ditions." As a result, the American bankers withdrew 
from the syndicate. Although this action is in line with his 
attitude toward concessions to syndicates in Spanish America, 
the administration did not go so far in China as to oppose 
the activities of others; and the five remaining powers con- 
tinued their negotiations. 

Our relations with China herself have been simple and 
good-natured, particularly during the agreeable mission of 
United States Wu Ting Fang to this country. The question 
and China ^£ Chinese immigration has been left on the 

basis of the treaty of 1894, which was continued in 1903.^ 
In the treaty that perpetuated it, new ports, inland naviga- 
tion, and mining rights were opened up, and trademarks, 
patents, and copyrights were provided for. Missions were 
placed upon an exceptionally strong basis, which allowed 
societies to rent and lease lands and buildings in any part of 
the empire, and exempted Chinese Christians from taxation 
for the support of "religious customs and practices contrary 
to their faith." An elaborate tariff was made a part of the 

* A. P. C. Griffin, Select list of References on Chinese Immigration, Library 
of Congress, 1904. 




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THE PACIFIC 461 

treaty. Finally, the use of a portion of the Boxer indemnity 
fund to aid Chinese students to study in this country bids 
fair to increase the friendliness between the two peoples. 

With Japan the situation has been very different. With 
that country we now have more points of contact than 
with any other nation except Great Britain. United States 
The fact is, though it is not yet recognized ^'^ J*P*° 
politically, that this embassy has taken the position held by 
that of Spain until 1898, as the second in importance. In addi- 
tion to the direct questions involved by a large trade and an 
unpopular immigration, we have to deal with Japan as oc- 
cupying Chinese territory in Manchuria, as well as in her 
relations to Spanish America, which are founded on a large 
and increasing immigration to nearly all of those republics. 
The situation is further complicated in the United States by 
the belief that Japan desires Hawaii and the Philippines, and 
in Japan by a disappointment, to say the least, that we 
secured the latter islands, as well as by resentment at our 
attitude toward Japanese emigrants. 

The first difficulty lay in the objection on the part of 
a large element of American public opinion, particularly 
on the Pacific coast, to Japanese immigration. Japanese 
This objection was partly racial and partly ™°"eration 
due to the fear of competition in the labor market with 
the overflowing populations of the Orient. The position 
and the self-conscious pride of Japan made impossible any 
such treaty arrangement as was made with China. In fact 
the treaties of 1894 and 1911 both granted a mutual right of 
immigration. Under these trying circumstances Secretary 
Root succeeded in putting the question at rest, by an agree- 
ment, expressed in a series of notes exchanged in 1907 and 
1908, whereby the Japanese government itself undertook 
to prohibit the emigration of laborers to the United States. 
A similar understanding between Japan and Canada prevents 
the danger of the smuggling of coolies across the border, and 
a United States law prevents Japanese labor already resident 



462 AMERICAN DIPLOMACY 

in Hawaii from migrating to the states. In this way Japanese 

pride was saved, and the desire of American opinion was 

for the time being met. 

The problem of the position of Japanese now resident in the 

United States has proved more perplexing. By treaty they 

are secured the rights of citizens of the most 
Japanese in . ° 

the United favored nation, but they are ineligible to citizen- 
States • . 

ship. In the case of the Italians, who were un- 
popular in the nineties, the securing of the franchise has, 
politically at any rate, secured them full acceptance. The 
Japanese, being politically negligible, are at the mercy of leg- 
islation in so far as they are not protected by treaty rights. 
Their privileges have been interfered with by legislation in 
several states, in such a way, the Japanese government claims, 
as to violate our treaty obligation. The chief complaint has 
been of California. In 1913 the legislature of that state, 
after many years of agitation with regard to their use of 
schools and other privileges, adopted a small measure of 
discrimination by prohibiting leases of agricultural land 
for more than three years to persons "ineligible to citizen- 
ship." In the actual situation this restriction applies almost 
entirely to the Japanese. The qualifications for citizenship 
are of course a purely domestic affair; but the making of 
the standard of eligibility a rule for granting further 
favors, when that standard applies almost wholly to one 
nation, certainly raises a delicate question under the most 
favored nation clause. 

This dispute still persists, but otherwise our relations have 
been exceptionally friendly. The floating of a Japanese 
, loan in the United States at the time of the 

Japanese- 
American un- war with Russia established a tie, and our 
derstanding •• .• • /^i • ii j • 

cooperation m Chma was generally conducive 

to good feeling. In 1908 Secretary Root and the Japanese 

ambassador exchanged notes to the effect that their wish 

was for the peaceful development of their commerce on the 

Pacific; that "the policy of both governments, uninfluenced 



THE PACIFIC 463 

by any aggressive tendencies, is directed to the maintenance 
of the existing status quo in the region above mentioned, 
and to the defense of the principle of equal opportunity for 
commerce and industry in China;" that they both stood for 
the independence and integrity of China; and that, should 
any event threaten the existing conditions, "it remains for 
the two governments to communicate with each other in 
order to arrive at an understanding as to what measures 
they may consider it useful to take." 

In thus defending our interests in the Pacific, and at the 
same time exerting a decided influence on international 
policy, even to the point of having possibly 
prevented the dismemberment of China, with entangling al- 
so little resulting international bad feeling 
and that of a character practically inevitable and without 
becoming involved in any entangling alliance, American 
diplomacy has shown itself at its best and worthy of the early 
traditions of the republic.^ 

^W. R. Thayer, "John Hay," Harper s Magazine, 1915, especially 836- 
842, throws much liglit on Hay's personality and on diplomatic problems, 
particularly the Alaska boundary and the canal problem. His life of Hay 
will appear in 1915. 



CHAPTER XXXIII 
ROUTINE AND ARBITRATION^ 

With our policy of dominance in the Caribbean, of exclu- 
sion of foreign influence throughout Spanish America, of 
equal compromise with Great Britain in British 
North America, of participation in Eastern 
Asia, of non-interference in Europe, Africa remains open. 
Our joining in an international receivership for Liberia in 
1912, must, of course, be attributed to a special parental in- 
terest in that little republic; but our participation in the 
Algeciras conference in 1906 was merely an accidental result 
of our signing the act of 1880 concerning Morocco, and led to 
no entangling consequences. The Senate ratified the " Gen- 
eral Act" of the conference with the distinct assertion that it 
was not to be deemed a departure on our part from our 
traditional policy of having nothing to do with "the settle- 
ment of questions which are entirely European in their scope." 
We have no African policy. 

With Turkey, a power partly European and partly Asiatic, 

the United States has also assumed no special attitude. It 

„ has followed the example of European nations in 

Turkey . . ,,..,.. 

reservmg to its own consuls the jurisdiction over 

its own citizens. This matter has been the subject of peren- 
nial dispute, as diflFering texts have been found of our treaty 
of 1830, upon which our claim to the privileges of extraterri- 
toriality have been chiefly based. Our insistence upon the 
practice, however, was placed by Hay in 1900 on the most 
favored nation clause, and we have maintained it. What 
action will be taken now that Turkey has (1914) abrogated 

^ American Year Book, 1910. This annual and the International Year Book 
give good accounts of the diplomacy of each year. 

464 



ROUTINE AND ARBITRATION 465 

the privilege in the case of all nations, is uncertain; the 
most favored nation clause ceases to have any significance 
in the connection, and our treaty is abrogated with the rest. 
We have taken no part in the concert of powers which has 
so often intervened and remonstrated as a result of condi- 
tions within the Turkish empire. In 1894 the Senate passed 
resolutions looking to expostulation because of reported 
"atrocities;" but President Cleveland stated that, since 
the European powers were bound together in the matter 
by the treaty of Berlin, we could not take action without 
inconvenience, and that he had already declined an in- 
vitation of the Turkish government to investigate con- 
ditions. 

The protection of our citizens there has, however, been 
a perpetual source of annoyance and dispute. These con- 
troversies have been chiefly of two classes, those „. . 

. Missions 

relating to missionaries, and those havmg to do 

with naturalized citizens of Turkish origin. Our missions, 
particularly numerous in Syria and including the important 
Roberts College at Constantinople, have been permitted, 
and have enjoyed protection. By an agreement of 1874, 
definitely interpreted in 1910, they have even been allowed 
to hold property. Our whole position has been simplified 
by the fact that united Europe demands the fullest freedom 
in such matters, and that we have since 1903 claimed and 
have not been denied, equal treatment. Our position has 
been that whatever concessions of this character have been 
granted European nations, become automatically ours by 
right. In the case of injury to missions or to other American 
property during the disorders so frequent in Turkey, we 
have never succeeded in making the Sublime Porte ac- 
knowledge our claims by formal treaty. In one instance, 
however, indemnity was virtually granted by an agreed 
overpayment for the construction of a Turkish war vessel 
by an American firm. 

The situation of our naturalized natives of Turkey is 



466 AMERICAN DIPLOMACY 

extremely disagreeable, and, owing to the increased immi- 
gration of Armenians and Syrians to this country, the matter 

has been of growing importance. Turkey 
problem with allows expatriation only by permission and 

on condition of renewing Turkish citizenship 
immediately upon return to the empire. European nations, 
having no large interchange of population with Turkey, 
have acquiesced in this position; and the United States has 
been obliged to follow their example. Natives of Turkey 
who have become naturalized in the United States, therefore, 
whether with or without the permission of the Turkish 
government, cannot expect from the United States that full 
protection afforded to native American citizens or natural- 
ized citizens born elsewhere than Turkey. This does not, 
however, mean that they are neglected. The United States 
embassy and consular officials are always on the alert, and 
have actually afiForded a protection sufficiently efficacious to 
make it worth while to forge American passports. It is 
this lack of definite agreement and the possibility of ac- 
complishing so much by personal effort, that makes the 
embassy at Constantinople so important. It is generally 
given to a man of personality, and it was here that Oscar 
S. Straus did so much to ameliorate conditions. Legally 
the conditions with regard to naturalization are similar 
in Russia, but there the subject has been handled on the 
basis of general understandings, which for a long time worked 
fairly satisfactorially. The dangers inherent in the situation 

„ ^ ,. ,. however, are illustrated by the dispute over 

Naturalization ... . 

problem with Russia's decision to exclude entirely Russian 

Jews naturalized in America, which led in 
1912 to the denunciation of our treaty of commerce with that 
country by Congress. 

In Europe itself the shadow of the profound and united 
animosity, which succeeded the Spanish War, quickly van- 
ished with the realization that our new policy was not aggres- 
sive in fields particularly interesting to that continent, — that 



ROUTINE AND ARBITRATION 467 

we did not threaten the equipoise of European power, that 

our gigantic trade balances were not eternal, that New York 

did not take the place of European capitals as ^^^ ^ ^ ^^_ 

the center for foreign loans. Perhaps, too, titude of 

.,.,.- . Europe 

there was a feeling that, if we were strong, it 

would be good policy to cultivate us. Quick to perceive these 
facts, the Kaiser became demonstrative in his friendliness, 
sending his brother Prince Henry to visit us, presenting the 
nation with a statute of Frederick the Great and Harvard 
University with the material to fill a Germanic museum, 
leading the way in the cultivation of international good will 
by the establishment of exchange professorships, and asking 
President Roosevelt's daughter to christen his new racing 
yacht, the building of which in America was a compliment 
to a national industry of which we are justly proud. France, 
less successful in engaging the popular attention, followed 
in his wake with a statue of Rochambeau, which recalled to 
our people when reading one morning newspaper, the aid 
that she had given us under his leadership during our 
Revolution. She too provided exchange professorships. 
This effusive friendship was harmless, and, if it did 
not much affect the stand taken by Germany on Ameri- 
can pork, it at least provided a pleasanter atmosphere for 
negotiation. 

With Europe, the question of immigration to the United 
States has far-reaching possibilities. The floods of immi- 
grants that have lately come to our shores European 
from that continent have excited the appre- i°i°"gration 
hension of widely differing classes of our population. Senator 
Lodge has made himself spokesman of the movement toward 
exclusion, and the labor element has complained of being 
exposed to the competition of newcomers satisfied with a 
low standard of living. This agitation has taken form in the 
exclusion of persons with disease, with criminal records, or 
those likely to become dependent upon the public for sup- 
port. As a further precaution, Congress in 1912 and twice 



468 AMERICAN DIPLOMACY 

in 1914 passed acts establishing a literary test. The first 
of these was vetoed by President Taf t, and the other two met 
a like fate from President Wilson. Nevertheless some 
further legislation is probable in the near future. 

While such action would not necessarily lead to foreign 
complications, yet the laws that we already have give rise 
Roumanian to many minor diplomatic problems, and in 
°°*® 1902 Secretary Hay took a new stand with 

many potentialities. On July 17 of that year he wrote to 
our minister accredited to Roumania concerning a proposed 
convention in regard to naturalization. After discussing our 
general policy, he added : " It behooves the State to scrutinize 
most jealously the character of the immigration from a foreign 
land, and, if it be obnoxious to objection, to examine the 
causes which render it so. Should those causes originate 
in the act of another sovereign State, to the detriment of 
its neighbors, it is the prerogative of an injured State, to 
point out the evil and to make remonstrance; for with na- 
tions, as with individuals, the social law holds good that the 
right of each is bounded by the right of the neighbor." He 
found that the action of Roumania made life intolerable to 
the Jews. "Removal under such conditions is not and can- 
not be the healthy, intelligent emigration of a free and self- 
reliant being. It must be, in most cases, the mere trans- 
plantation of an artifically produced diseased growlh to a 
new place." Our opposition was not to Jews, but to out- 
casts and paupers. We would make no treaty by which, 
under existing conditions, we were forced to take them, or 
by which they were to be prevented from returning to 
Roumania.^ 

Our action in this matter was limited to our remonstrance 
and our refusal to make a treaty. The suggestion of Secre- 
tary Bryan, in 1913, to tlio Bucharest conference of the Bal- 
kan states, that it permit full religious liberty, seems to have 

' Cyrus Adler, Jews in the Diplomatic Correspondence of the United States 
Amer. Jewish Hist. Soc, Publications, No. 15 (1906). 



ROUTINE AND ARBITRATION 469 

been in accordance with this poHcy. Our national annoy- 
ance at the forced immigration due to the artificial stimula- 
tion caused by the advertisements and solicita- „ . 

*' . . Undue stimu- 

tions of steamship lines, has not reached lation of immi- 
the point of definite diplomatic action; but 
we have called the attention of the nations concerned to 
the subject, and have met with sympathetic response from 
Italy. The prospective opening of the Panama canal, with 
the possibility of water transit to the Pacific Coast, caused 
the subject to receive special attention in 1914. 

The routine problems of diplomacy did not require quite 
so much attention during this period as in that from the 

Civil to the Spanish war, although the number First treaties, 

n . 1 J? , TXT J n 1. extradition, 

ol actual cases was tar greater. We made nrst and trade- 
treaties only with Ethiopia, more commonly ™arks 
known as Abyssinia, and with San Marino. The area of 
extradition practically covered the globe, and the protection 
of our trademarks, patents, and copyrights became almost 
world-wide. Claims we arranged with Brazil, Chili, Great 
Britain, Guatemala, Hayti, Peru, Russia, Salvador, and 
Venezuela. These were all submitted to some form of ar- 
bitration. 

Although our ocean merchant marine remained relatively 
small, we took no steps to improve it that involved our rela- 
tions with other countries. The era of maritime Merchant 
discrimination, except in regard to coasting "^"'^^ 
trade, had passed. For the maintenance of their commercial 
flags at sea, nations had come to rely on subsidies and on 
the creation of conditions favorable to ship-building and em- 
ployment. Congress was continually and earnestly urged 
to adopt a subsidy policy, but refused to do so. Such legis- 
lation as was adopted from time to time rather repressed 
than encouraged the development of a marine under our flag. 
The laws concerning the registration of vessels, granting 
the right to carry the American flag, made it difficult to 
register foreign built vessels, the intention being to encourage 



470 AMERICAN DIPLOIVIACY 

domestic ship-building. The various tariffs, however, by 
protecting the materials for ship-building, increased its 
cost. While thus making American built ships more costly, 
the government was not able to afford them compensating 
protection, for the competition of the ocean marine is in- 
ternational, and equality is the most that can be obtained 
by international agreement. It was hoped that the tariff 
law of 1913 would remove some of the disadvantages under 
which we labored, but conditions since its passage have been 
so unusual as to render it impossible to estimate its effect. 
The outbreak of the great war of 1914, therefore, found us in 
the position that Jefferson described in his report of 1793; 
chiefly dependent for our foreign intercourse upon the 
marines of warring foreign nations. The situation thus 
created led to a widespread interest in the problem, from 
which some consistent and effective national policy may 
result. Already (March, 1915) the opening of American 
registry to foreign built vessels has brought us half a million 
tons of shipping. President Wilson's proposal for a nation- 
owned marine suggests interesting possibilities. 

The attempt to create openings for our commerce was con- 
stant and more successful. In 1903 a special reciprocity 
treaty was made with Cuba. The Dingley tariff 
act of 1897, authorized the President to negoti- 
ate, within two years, reciprocity treaties providing for a 
twenty per cent reduction of duties, such agreement to be 
subject in every case to the ratification of the Senate and the 
approval of Congress. J. A. Kasson was appointed special 
commissioner to secure such treaties, and obtained them 
with Great Britain in behalf of Barbadoes, Bermuda, British 
Guiana, Turk island and Caicos, and Jamaica, also with 
the Argentine Republic, France, the Dominican Republic, 
Ecuador, and Denmark. Although Senator CuUom, chair- 
man of the senate committee on foreign affairs, strongly 
urged that the treaties should go into effect immediately 
upon their ratification by the Senate, that view was not 



ROUTINE AND ARBITRATION 471 

pressed, and at the suggestion of Senator Spooner each of 
them was amended by the addition of the clause "not to 
take effect until the same shall have been approved by the 
Congress." This admission of the power of Congress as a 
whole in these particular cases left open the general ques- 
tion of the rights of the President and Senate to make such 
treaties. Under these circumstances, only the treaty with 
France was accepted, in 1898, with an amendment in 1902.^ 

In addition, the Dingley act gave the President power to 
apply by proclamation varying fixed minimum and maxi- 
mum tariffs to different countries according Maximum and 
to their treatment of us. This measure proved minimum 
to be a powerful weapon in preventing retalia- 
tory and discriminating tariffs. It became the constant 
business of our diplomats to watch the commercial policies 
of foreign governments, and with the threat of high or the 
offer of low rates to secure favorable treatment for our 
merchants. Such agreements were made in 1900 with Italy, 
Germany, and Portugal, and in 1902 an additional one was 
arranged with Portugal; in 1906 one was made with Spain 
and a substitute one with Germany; and in 1908 the treaty 
with France was supplemented by such an agreement. In 
1906 the President, without formal compact, but in con- 
sideration of tariff changes in Switzerland, proclaimed a 
low rate on our imports of her products. With the passage 
of the Payne-Aldrich tariff act in 1910, all these agreements 
fell. A similar minimum and maximum provision in the latter 
act, however, afforded opportunity for similar agreements, 
and a tariff mission was able promptly to make arrangements 
with most of the countries with which we trade heavily. 
These again ceased to be of force with the passage of the 
Underwood tariff of 1913, which nevertheless authorized 
the President "to negotiate trade agreements with foreign 
nations," providing for mutual concessions "looking toward 
free trade relations and further reciprocal expansion of trade 
^ S. M. Cullom, Fifty Years of Public Service, Chicago, 1911. 



472 AMERICAN DIPLOMACY 

and commerce." These are to be ratified in each case by 
both houses of Congress. 

It was only natural that, with our new and wider interna- 
tional relationships and the constant progress of international 
International agreement, the scope of our international acts 
agreements should expand also. In 1898 we adopted 
as a modus vivcndi during our war with Spain, articles re- 
lating to the conduct of hostilities drawn up at a Geneva 
convention of 1864. In 1899 we adhered to a Convention 
regulating the Importation of Spirituous Liquors into Africa, 
and in 1906 to a new agreement on the same subject. In 
1900 we were parties to an additional Act for the Protection 
of Industrial Property, in 1902 to a Convention on Literary 
and Artistic Copyrights, in 1903 to an International Sani- 
tary Convention. In 1902 we united with most of the 
American powers in a Convention for the Arbitration of 
Pecuniary Claims, and in 1905 in an International Sanitary 
Convention of which the other signatories were Central 
and South American states. In 1904 we joined in an inter- 
national exemption of hospital ships from the payment of 
dues. In 1905 we shared in the establishment of an Inter- 
national Institute of Agriculture at Rome, of which the first 
director was an American. In 1906 we were signatory to an 
International Red Cross Convention for the amelioration 
of the condition of the wounded of the armies in the field, 
in the same year to an agreement for the unification of the 
Pharmacopoeial Formulas for Potent Drugs, and in 1907 
to the establishment of an International OflSce of Public 
Health. 

During the whole of this period one of the most absorbing 
subjects of our diplomacy, as well as of popular interest 
Peace move- in diplomacy, was the movement for the im- 
™*°* provement of the conditions of war and for the 

customary settlement of international disputes by judicial 
process. Arbitration in special cases has been a historic policy 
of the United States. Blaine's attempt to establish it as a 



ROUTINE AND ARBITRATION 473 

general practice for all America showed, as did so many of 
his policies, a premonition of the coming movement. In 
the period following the Spanish war many of our leaders 
welcomed it with enthusiasm. President Roosevelt endorsed 
it, and Secretaries Hay, Root, and Bryan, as well as President 
Taft, made it a leading purpose. The education of public 
sentiment in the direction of universal peace was organized 
on a colossal scale as a result of the munificence of Andrew 
Carnegie and Edwin Ginn, and of the activity of A. K. 
Smiley, who since 1882 has called the believers in peace to an- 
nual conferences at Lake Mohonk. The pressure of always- 
impending war in Spanish America, however, excited those 
countries to a somewhat earlier application of arbitration 
as a general practice, and the tremendous cost of war ar- 
maments in Europe, combined with the militant patriotism 
of its great powers, have given the question a greater popular 
vitality there than with us. 

The first important step in the direction of peace was the 
calling by the Czar of the first Hague conference, which met 
in 1899. This body adopted certain principles Hague con- 
to govern the conduct of war on land and sea, Terences 
and established a permanent court of arbitration to sit at the 
Hagnie. The second conference, held in 1907, adopted addi- 
tional rules with regard to the conduct of war, reorganized 
the court, and declared the principle that the contract debts 
of one government to another should not be collected by 
force. Andrew Carnegie gave funds for the building of a 
palace for the work of the court, to the furnishing of which 
various nations presented evidences of their regard for 
peace. ^ 

The formation of a permanent court stimulated the resort 

to arbitration. The United States joined in sending many 

^ W. I. Hull, The Two Hague Conferences, Boston, 1908; Moore, American 
Diplomacy, ch. viii.; J. W. Foster, Arbitration and the Hague Court, Boston, 
1904; Lake Mohonk Conference on International Arbitration, Reports, 1895, 
etc., Assoc, for International Conciliation, International Conciliation, 1907, 
etc. (issued monthly). 



474 AMERICAN DIPLOJMACY 

cases to it, particularly its long-standing claim against Mexico 
for the "Pious fund," and suggested the court as a recourse 
General ar- agreeable to us for the settlement of Spanish- 
bitration American disputes with European powers. 

More important was the impetus which it gave to the adop- 
tion of general arbitration treaties providing for future 
cases. In 1902, for instance, Spain and Mexico came to a 
ten years' agreement for the compulsory reference to the 
Hague court of all their troubles that could not be settled 
by diplomacy. 

A model treaty knowm as the mondel, or world treaty, was 
devised by the Conference. This provided that all differences 
The model ^^ ^ legal nature as well as all those relating to 

treaties ^he interpretation of treaties, which could not be 

settled by diplomacy, and which did not affect vital interests, 
independence, or honor, should be referred to the Hague 
Court. This reference was not to be automatic, but every dis- 
pute which arose between the contracting nations was to be 
made the subject of a special protocol or agreement. The 
point gained for judicial settlement, was that the contracting 
nations bound themselves to make such arrangements. The 
treaty itself was to be of five years' duration. It was a very 
tentative step, but it was hoped that if generally accepted, it 
would land mankind somewhat nearer the goal of universal 
peace. Secretary Hay concluded treaties in general accord 
with this model with a number of nations, and President 
Roosevelt referred them to the Senate. 

In that body there was general approval, tempered by 
fear that they might lead to cases involving the bonds which 
Attitude of have been repudiated by a number of our states. 
Senate rpj^^ Senate was also alarmed because no pro- 

vision was made that the special protocols in each case should 
be submitted to it for approval. If all such international 
disputes were simjily to be sent by the President to the Hague, 
the prestige of the Senate would be decidedly diminished. 
President Roosevelt wrote Senator Cullom, chairman of the 



ROUTINE AND ARBITRATION 475 

committee on foreign affairs, that it was "absurd and prob- 
ably mischievous to treat" the question of state debts " as 
possible to be raised." On the subject of reference, however, 
both he and Hay were emphatic that it was intended to 
be kept in the hands of the President, and that it should be 
kept there; whereupon the Senate straightway amended the 
treaties by substituting the word "treaty" for "special 
agreement," thus removing the doubt and keeping the matter 
in its own hands. ^ 

President Roosevelt was so deeply incensed at this action 
that he refused to go on with the treaties. Secretary Root, 
with the approval of President Taft, however, Acceptance of 
renewed the project and secured a large number *^® treaties 
in the amended form. In 1908 and 1909 we made them with 
Austria-Hungary, China, Costa Rica, Denmark, France, 
Great Britain, Hayti, Italy, Japan, Mexico, the Netherlands, 
Norway, Paraguay, Peru, Portugal, Salvador, Spain, Sweden, 
and Switzerland. 

In 1913 Secretary Bryan sought to extend the scope of 
arbitration still farther by carrying out one of the recom- 
mendations of the second Hague conference „ 

„, .,. . p Bryan's policy 

looking to the postponement of hostilities, from 

whatever cause, pending an investigation of the facts. This 
suggestion, reminding one of the "pause twenty minutes 
before you spank" principle, which has done so much to 
reduce the corporal punishment of children, would help 
offset the exciting effect of the telegraph and the cable, which 
have enabled the popular excitement in two countries to 
react so quickly and so constantly. Secretary Bryan's pro- 
posal met with so prompt a response from most of the coun- 
tries with which we have habitual dealings, that in the summer 
of 1914 twenty such treaties were submitted to the Senate. 
The years from 1898 to 1913 may be regarded as a period 
by themselves, partly because of the continuity of personnel 
in the diplomatic staff, and partly from the fact that prac- 
^ CuUom, Fifty Years of Public Service. 



476 AMERICAN DIPLOMACY 

tically all terminable difficulties had been settled by the latter 
year. It was a period replete with new policies and with 
Period 1898 the development of old ones to suit new con- 
to 1913 ditions, and over the whole period hung the un- 
certainty as to whether, should the opposing party come to 
power, these new departures would be confirmed, or dropped 
or changed. The administration of President Wilson does 
indeed bid fair to mark a turning point in international rela- 
tionships, and to usher in a new period. Mainly, however, 
this diplomatic change has been the result of new factors 
introduced from the outside, of the great calamity of the 
present (1915) world war. The situation has altered, but 
American policy has remained comparatively unchanged. 
The traditional American policies have been maintained and 
the most of the new ideas introduced under McKinley, 
Roosevelt, and Taft, having been endorsed by the opposing 
party, are in fair way to become traditions. Those few which 
were reversed, as Secretary Knox's " dollar diplomacy " may 
be considered as still subjects of domestic controversy. 

In many respects the outstanding feature of this period was, 
as for that from 1815 to 1829, the clearing of the board of minor 
Routine and questions of all kinds, — boundaries, fisheries, cit- 
commerce izcnship, claims, and treaty interpretations, — 

some of them old problems, some new, but all interfering 
with cordial international relationships. Never before had 
we been quite so free from such food for quarrelling as we 
were by 1913. In this period, as in all others, diplomacy 
sought to aid commerce, its attempts were perhaps somewhat 
more positive than before, but were of such a character 
that it is difficult to estimate their effect. 

Much more spectacular was the expansion of territory. 
The new acquisitions were more remarkable for the novelty 
Expansion of of their characteristics than for their extent, 
territory p^^. ^j^^ ^^^^ time we violated Jefferson's in- 

junction to make no annexations that would require a navy 
for their defense. In the case of the Philippines there was 



ROUTINE AND ARBITRATION 477 

the further novelty that we professed an intention of holding 
them only until they should be ready for independence. 
In reality far more important than the exten- Expansion of 
sion of our dominions was our entrance into "^"^^^ce 
the diplomacy of eastern Asia. Although still avoiding en- 
tangling alliances, we nevertheless engaged in the problems 
of the Far East as an equal participant with the great powers 
of Europe. Our purposes were limited to the preservation of 
the integrity of China and the open door for trade, ideas that 
appealed to the ideals of our own people, and were calculated 
to command the acquiescence if not the heartfelt approval 
of foreign nations. At the same time we cordially cooperated 
with other nations in general measures for the protection of 
commerce, for the peaceful settlement of international dis- 
putes, and for the humane conduct of war, if war must be. 

Our most striking single achievement was the settlement 
on a new basis, in accordance with our changed opinion, 
of the status of isthmian transit. Although isthmian 
this determination of the question has proved P<'"'^y 
its worth by allowing the actual construction of the long- 
planned canal, it can hardly be regarded as diplomatically 
satisfactory, or as likely to withstand the strain of a war to 
which we ourselves should be a party. In connection with 
the canal we have developed a distinct Caribbean policy, 
which has not been thoroughly differentiated from what we 
call the Monroe Doctrine, but which is actually different. 

The Monroe Doctrine itself has continued its growth by 
accretion; even more than the Constitution has it been 
adjusted to meet new wants, while preserving p • ^ f 

the sanctity of an established and revered the Monroe 
name. Although monarchy and republicanism 
cease to stand in such striking opposition as they did in 
1823, the European system of alliances and balance of power 
is still a real something which we wish to avoid, and have 
thus far successfully avoided. Though our relations have 
grown, and will continue to grow, increasingly intimate, 



478 AMERICAN DIPLOIVIACY 

we have not become a part of the European system. It is, 
however, still a possibility, as it was in 1823, that we may 
by our own action or by the force of circumstances, become 
a member of it. It is still the wish of some European states- 
men that this may become the case, and some Americans are 
not adverse to the idea. The fact that for ninety years, 
ever since our declaration against further colonization, there 
has been no establishment of new European colonies in 
America decidedly strengthens our continued insistence on 
that point. On the other hand, the fact that in the same 
ninety years the only colonies in America from which Euro- 
pean authority has been removed are Alaska, Cuba, and 
Porto Rico somewhat deadens the force of Secretary Olney's 
declaration that all the colonies are destined to break off 
their dependence. Fortunately he set no date. If any new 
case should occur, we should probably still maintain the 
position announced by Polk in the case of Yucatan, that we 
could not with equanimity see even the voluntary passing 
of any American territory under European jurisdiction; 
and probably, we should also hold the position taken by 
Grant, that we should object to the transfer of any colony 
from one European power to another, at least where such 
transfer was likely to change the status of American affairs. 
The development of an American unity to confront the dual- 
ity of Europe, which Adams and Clay planned, which Blaine 
did so much to promote, was pressed in this period with 
vigor and with some success, but must be held to be a long 
way from accomplishment. Our American policy is still 
the policy of the United States. 

The most important new features or corollaries of our 
policy were our announcements that, with a view to reducing 
New corol- the opportunity for European interference, 

Monroe*^ ^^ ^^ ^^^^ willing, by mediation, advice, guardian- 
Doctrine ship, and practical protectorates, to insure the 
carrying out by American governments of their general 
obligations to Europeans. To what extent we are ready to 



ROUTINE AND ARBITRATION 479 

push this supervision is a matter to be determined in each 
case, but there can be no doubt that we would go farther 
within the region of our special interest, the Caribbean, 
than elsewhere. It is significant that the new corollary of 
the Wilson administration, to the effect that we will recognize 
only governments founded on justice and law, was not 
applied in the case of Peru, where a military government 
was promptly recognized at the very time when we were 
protesting against the government of Huerta in Mexico. 



CHAPTER XXXIV 
MEXICO 

When Woodrow Wilson became President, March 4, 1913, 
he found himself in a position somewhat similar to that of 
Wilson ad- Jefferson in 1801, of Jackson in 1829, and of 
ministration Lincoln in 1861. Most of the diplomatic 
problems of the time had been set at rest, and pol- 
icies for dealing with routine affairs had been adopted 
and were running smoothly. He called to the position of 
secretary of state William Jennings Bryan, who, being with- 
out experience in matters of state, would naturally be ex- 
pected to be chiefly interested in the general politics of 
the administration. In selecting John Bassett Moore as 
counsellor of the state department, however, he secured the 
promise of sound judgment and continuity of action.^ 

Wilson at once reversed one policy of the previous admin- 
istration by withdrawing the assistance of diplomacy to 
Change of Americans seeking concessions in China, and 

P°^'*^^ announced a new extension of the Monroe 

Doctrine by opposing concessions to foreign corporations 
by American nations. The second of these new departures 
promised to make up to the state department the loss of 
labor which the first might cause. Of the three unsettled 
and exciting questions left to him, two were the dispute with 
Great Britain concerning the canal toll, and that relating 
to the position of Japanese residents in this country. Both 
these matters he endeavored to settle by domestic action. 
In the interest of the second one, Secretary Bryan visited 
California and attempted to forestall action by her legis- 
lature, but this attempt failed, and the controversy con- 
• Resigned March 4, 1914. 
480 



MEXICO 481 

tinues. In the matter of tolls, the President recommended 
Congress to revoke its action. This it did, and that question 
has vanished. 

The third and most important problem was that of Mexico. 
Contiguous, within the range of our Caribbean policy, 
and powerful, Mexico had always demanded Relations with 
a large share of our diplomatic attention. To ^^^co 
these causes of interest have usually been added those arising 
from her internal disorder; but that factor had come to 
be excluded from our consideration during the long presi- 
dency of Porfirio Diaz, which had given a peace that seemed 
established. The intimacy of our relationship is indicated 
by forty agreements, treaties, and conventions made in the 
forty years between 1868 and 1908. These included, besides 
the usual subjects of international negotiation, arrangements 
with regard to boundary, the pursuit of Indians, provision 
for the navigation of the Rio Grande, and the equitable dis- 
tribution of the waters of that river. The agreements finally 
culminated in a general treaty of arbitration and the meeting 
of Taft and Diaz in 1910. 

While the governments were thus intimate, and in general 

friendly, the citizens of the United States were infiltrating 

Mexico. This infiltration, however, was dif- _ . 

' Foreign in- 

ferent from that which Alaman saw and feared terests in 
in Texas, it was most largely an infiltration of 
capital. Peace had opened up enormous possibilities of 
development, for which Mexico could furnish the oppor- 
tunity and the labor, but not the accumulated capital nec- 
essary to combine the two. The rewards promised to capital 
were correspondingly great and it was furnished in large 
amounts. Mining companies and railroad corporations 
invested enormous sums, and ranching companies, rub- 
ber plantation companies, and municipal utility companies 
scattered their shares broadcast. Private individuals en- 
gaged in great undertakings, and to hasten development 
the Mexican government itself borrowed heavily. This cap- 



482 AMERICAN DIPLOMACY 

ital came from all the investing countries of the world, but 
chiefly from the United States. In 1912, President Taft esti- 
mated that a billion dollars had been invested by Americans. 
This capital did not go unaccompanied. It sent its rep- 
resentatives to Mexico, and in addition, organizing ability 

_ . and expert service were needed. Thousands 

Foreign ^ . . 

population in of Americans, with many English, French, 
and Germans, found employment there. Span- 
iards continued, as always, to be numerous. Although the 
foreign colony at the City of Mexico was large, the majority 
of these foreigners were not to be found in compact settle- 
ments, but scattered about the country, managing mines, 
ranches, and plantations, and living in the midst of a pop- 
ulation overwhelmingly native. The one important excep- 
tion was an agricultural colony of American Mormons in 
the north. 

When, therefore, in November, 1910, Francisco Madero 
inaugurated a revolution, the event became at once a matter 
Revolution of of high concern for the United States and for 
Madero other foreign powers. While France, Spain, 

Germany, Great Britain, and the United States were all 
interested in the protection of the lives and property of their 
citizens, the United States was additionally disturbed over 
the relation of the revolt to the Monroe Doctrine, as well as 
over the possibility of frontier disturbances. The latter 
question was the more immediately alarming, as the revolu- 
tion was to some extent sectional in character and in the 
beginning was localized in the north, the strategic points 
being those at which the railroads ran out of Mexico 
into United States territory. Juarez, Porfirio Diaz, and 
Larado ultimately became the scene of fighting, and stray 
bullets sometimes crossed the frontier and killed Americans 
upon American soil. In March, 1911, therefore, President 
Taft ordered the mobilization of twenty thousand United 
States troops on the frontier, with a fleet at Galveston. The 
rumors that these forces were intended to take part in a 



MEXICO 483 

forcible intervention, however. Secretary Knox dismissed as 
"foolish stories." We did, in point of fact preserve our 
neutrality according to our customary principles. 

The speedy collapse of the Diaz government was a sur- 
prise to most Americans, who were unaware of the general 
unrest and dissatisfaction which his failure to Madero's 
broaden the limits of popular government and s"*^<=®ss 
relieve the distress of the agricultural laborers had excited. 
While those with financial interests in Mexico regretted the 
passing of a government apparently strong and sympathetic 
with their aims, the general public in America came to sym- 
pathize with Madero, as the press spread the complaints of the 
revolutionists. There was, therefore, general satisfaction in 
the United States when, in May, 1911, Diaz resigned and left 
the country and, in October, Madero was elected president. 

The government of the latter was at once recognized, but 
was never able to establish peace. Even in 1911 the United 
States warned him that fighting was not to United states 
take place where American lives and property ^^ Madero 
would be endangered; and our army was kept ready for 
action. Nevertheless, while favoring the new government, 
we preserved strict neutrality, and in 1912 Congress took an 
additional step in the development of our neutral system by 
the passage of an act authorizing the President, whenever 
he should "find that in any American country conditions of 
domestic violence exist which are promoted by the use of 
arms and munitions of war procured from the United States," 
to prohibit trade in such articles. Taft acted at once upon 
this authority, but he exempted purchases by the govern- 
ment of Madero. 

In February, 1913, however, Madero was overthrown by 
Felix Diaz and General Huerta. Madero and his vice- 
president, Suarez, were killed under circum- Revolution of 
stances which strongly indicated official assas- •^"®'^* 
sination, and on February 27 Huerta was proclaimed presi- 
dent. His authority was at once rejected by Governor 



484 AMERICAN DIPLOMACY 

Carranza of the state of Coahuila, who denied its constitu- 
tionahty and insisted upon a return to the governmental 
methods prescribed by the constitution. 

It was under these circumstances that Wilson became 
President and undertook the management of the problem. 
Wilson and Before his policy \yas developed, Great Britain, 
Huerta ^j^ May 3, and France, Germany, and other 

countries in quick succession, recognized Huerta. This 
Wilson refused to do, and in explaming his action he formu- 
lated a new policy which remains the latest extension of the 
Monroe Doctrine, His purpose was to use non-recognition 
as a means of discouraging the establishment of governments 
in Spanish America that were based on violence, and on vio- 
lation of the constitution of the country involved and of the 
laws of morality. "We dare not," he declared, "turn from 
the principle that morality and not expediency is the thing 
that is to guide us and that we will never condone iniquity 
because it is most convenient to do so." This is a departure 
from our traditional policy of recognizing de facto govern- 
ments, although there exists one precedent in the threat of 
the Roosevelt administration not to acknowledge a revolu- 
tionary leader in the Dominican Republic even if he suc- 
ceeded. Our practical protectorate over that country 
however, together with its size, constituted important 
differences. 

President Wilson's attitude of non-recognition is by all 

odds the most aggressive turn that has ever been given to 

our Spanish-American policy, as it involves 
The policy of . , . • • i i • a • 

" non-recognl- practical mtervcntion in the domestic artairs 

of those republics. To ascertain the facts 

obviously means investigation. In actual operation the 

force created by such a policy of non-recognition consists in 

the lack of stability which it gives to the government under 

our disapprobation, and the consequent inability of the latter 

to borrow money. It is plainly President Wilson's belief 

that a government not founded on the popular will consti- 



MEXICO 485 

tutionally expressed, and without our recognition, is a house 
built upon the sands. Should such a government estabhsh 
itself, however, the situation might be inconvenient. 

In accordance with this policy, Wilson in August, 1913, 
sent a special but informal agent, John Lind, to convey his 
terms to Huerta. These were immediate "Watchftil 
amnesty, security for an early and a free elec- ^^t"^g 
tion, and the assurance that Huerta would not be candidate 
for the presidency and that all parties would agree to abide 
by the results. These terms were rejected; when, therefore, 
on October 9, 1913, Huerta "purged" the Mexican Congress 
by imprisoning over a hundred of its members, Wilson in- 
formed him that the United States would not accept the 
result of the election which was soon to be held. Already 
in August the United States had warned Americans to leave 
Mexico, the administration had sent war-vessels to assist 
their departure, and Congress had appropriated money for 
the same purpose. On December 2, the President informed 
Congress that his policy was one of "watchful waiting." 
Hoping for the success of the insurrectionists, he soon after- 
ward withdrew the embargo on arms. 

Meantime the administration vigorously, and with some 

degree of success, held both the Huerta government and the 

insurrectionists to a respect for the lives and p * « < 

property of Americans. It could not, however, life and 
; . . . 1 . , . . property 

msist on restitution and indemnity, since 

there was no recognized government to approach on these 
subjects. The powers of Europe, having recognized Huerta, 
were in a different position, and it was feared that they 
might pursue a different policy. This fear was in part re- 
moved by a speech of Prime Minister Asquith, on Novem- 
ber 10, 1913, in which he announced that, so far as Great 
Britain was concerned, there was "not a vestige of founda- 
tion for such a rumor;" and other nations assured the 
administration of their intention to respect American 
policy. 



48G AMERICAN DIPLOMACY 

Nevertheless, the presence of British, German, and French 

war-vessels on the Mexican coast created alarm lest they 

should feel called upon to land troops to pro- 
United States .... „ „ 1 • 
and European tect their Citizens. Senator Bacon, chairman 

^^^'^ of the Senate committee on foreign affairs, 

admitted that we could not deny their right to do so, but 
said he considered "it far better that a request be made to 
the United States to land marines " when protection was 
necessary, "so as to avoid the possibility of the slightest 
conflict between the United States and the European Pow- 
ers." The killing of Benton, an Englishman, by the rev- 
olutionary forces of General Villa in March, 1914, brought 
this question of protection to a head. Secretary Bryan as- 
serted that, since Great Britain, having recognized Huerta 
and not recognized belligerency, could in no way treat with 
the Constitutionalists, and yet could not be expected to let 
the matter pass unnoticed, we should be allowed to serve as 
intermediary, with the understanding, however, that we 
thereby assumed no responsibilitj'. This policy was acqui- 
esced in by both Great Britain and, after some hesitation, by 
Villa's superior officer. General Carranza. Should another 
case occur, therefore, the United States will undoubtedly 
handle it as next friend of both parties. 

The question arose whether the condition in Mexico con- 
stituted another of the traditional opportunities for Ameri- 
can expansion. The infiltration of American 
Expansion ver- . , , . . 

sus annexa- capital and Citizens, and the subsequent de- 
velopment of occasions for interference, were 
already there; the governor of Texas encouraged Texan 
citizens to cross the frontier in self-defence, the governor of 
Oregon prepared his militia for war with Mexico, and a bill 
for the annexation of northern Mexico was introduced into 
Congress. Even the final symptom, the fear of the intrusion 
of foreign influence in case we did not intervene, appeared. 
Japan had for some time been supposed to be seeking an 
entrance into Mexico. In 1912 the proposed purchase of 



MEXICO 487 

Magdalena bay for a Japanese colony excited the Senate 
to its adoption of Senator Lodge's resolution on the subject 
of concessions to a syndicate that might lead to the establish- 
ment of a foreign power on American territory. The send- 
ing of Felix Diaz by Huerta on a special mission to Japan 
in 1913 seemed to confirm the suspicion of undue intimacy, 
but the refusal of that government to receive him somewhat 
quieted our apprehension. In March, 1914, Senator Fall of 
New Mexico called for immediate intervention to prevent 
Germany from taking action in Mexico. 

On the other hand, the process of expansion by the growth 
of American interests in foreign countries and the subse- 
quent adhesion of these countries to the United States 
seems, except in case of Hawaii, to have been completed in 
1845. The acquisition of the Philippines, although it gave 
evidence of our desire to anticipate other countries, was ex- 
ceptional. It has been the theory, moreover, that our occupa- 
tion of those islands is to last only until they shall obtain the 
capacity for self-government, an idea which the Wilson 
administration has endeavored to make the basis of its Philip- 
pine policy. Alaska was an instance of happy and largely 
accidental anticipation; annexation promoted expansion 
rather than the reverse. Our other acquisitions belong to 
the category of naval stations, and are to be attributed 
rather to our imperialistic tendencies than to our traditional 
expansive habits. 

In spite of the dreams of a continental republic that 
Seward reflected, and in spite of our confident expectations 
of Cuba, the only settled portion of Spanish character of 
America that we have secured is Porto Rico, spaidsh"^ "* 
That island we took possession of because it Amenca 
was obviously foolish to have fought the Spanish war without 
putting an end to our century and a quarter of difficulties 
with Spain by excluding her, as Sumner said of Great Brit- 
ain, from the "hemisphere"; and, having taken it from Spain, 
we could do nothing but annex it. In no settled portion of 



MEXICO 489 

Spanish America have we ever established a concentrated 
population, or acquired a preponderance of numbers or of in- 
fluence, or established a likelihood of such a preponderance; 
nor has any Spanish-American population shown an inclina- 
tion to become incorporated into the United States. There 
has always been lacking, therefore, that local germ which 
has been the moving cause of annexation in each natural 
case. Financial interests and the temporary residence of 
our citizens in a foreign country have never yet led us to 
acquire that country. Had Buchanan taken northern Mexico 
in pledge for our claims in 1858, it is possible that such a 
germ might have developed there; but the possibility of it 
now seems remote. 

It is evident that we will not allow Mexico to become the 
seat of a power threatening our control of the Caribbean; 
but there is no probability that we shall ever The Vera 
receive from Mexico, or even from a part of episode 

Mexico, any authentic request for annexation, or that we 
shall in this case depart from President Wilson's pronounce- 
ment that "the United States will never again seek one foot 
of territory by conquest." In fact the very act which seemed 
to Spanish-American opinion most indicative of an intention 
on our part to conquer Mexico, was turned by President 
Wilson into the most convincing demonstration it has re- 
ceived of the sincerity of our constant protestation to the 
contrary. While our government refused to recognize 
either Huerta or Carranza as officially representative of 
Mexico, it was in constant relationship with both. In April, 
1914 its relations with Huerta became so strained that it 
was decided to undertake a military occupation of Vera Cruz. 
This was accomplished not without bloodshed. Although 
the administration announced that hostilities would not be 
carried farther, the opinion was widespread that war and 
at least temporary conquest would result. The people of the 
United States were strongly divided as to the probability 
and wisdom of such action, Europe was deeply interested. 



490 AMERICAN DIPLOMACY 

Spanish America was still more intensely aroused, and its 
press and public men were very generally convinced of the 
ambitions of the United States. In this crisis Argentina, 
Brazil, and Chili, known as the ABC powers, offered their 
mediation. This the Wilson administration promptly ac- 
cepted, subject to certain restrictions, and a conference was 
The ABC arranged at Niagara. The Mexican factions 

mediation showed themselves less amenable to suggestion 

than the United States, and practically nothing was done 
towards solving the internal problems of Mexico. The at- 
titude of the United States, however, was made clear to 
Spanish America, and the subsequent withdrawal of the 
American troops from Vera Cruz confirmed the impression, 
that it was guided by no motives of territorial aggrandize- 
ment. 



CHAPTER XXXV 
THE GREAT WAR 

The shadow which impending war had for some years 
cast over Europe, had not reached America, and the events 
of August, 1914, took almost everyone in 
the United States by complete surprise. They 
cannot be said, however, to have found the country un- 
prepared. The teachings of Washington, the reverence for 
the Monroe Doctrine, the consistent practice of a century 
and a quarter, had furnished a policy and a general under- 
standing of the requirements of that policy. The al- 
most universal desire was for neutrality, and both govern- 
ment and people realized that neutrality was not merely a 
passive state but involved active duties. It was realized 
also that neutrality could not save the nation from all the 
consequences of war, and that the utmost vigilance would 
be required to protect the national interests. 

History seemed to be repeating itself, and as nation after 
nation joined in the conflict, the conditions obtaining be- 
tween 1793 and 1815 seemed to reappear. But ^ 
actually history never repeats, and differences between 1793 
as important as the resemblances were soon 
evident. The first worry to which the country was sub- 
jected was the flight of the tens of thousands of American 
travellers who found themselves for a time, stranded, money- 
less and without means of transportation, in the belligerent 
countries. The world had grown so much smaller in the 
hundred years, so many new strands of connection united 
the nations of the world, that war was bound to touch 
neutral individuals more intimately than ever before. On 
the other hand, the settlement of the naturalization question 

491 



492 AMERICAN DIPLOMACY 

rendered a revival of the impressment problem impossible. 
The sympathies of the American people were divided as 
they had been before, but now the basis for this division 
was not political theory but racial kinship. Still more im- 
portant was the change in the relative weight of the United 
States among the nations of the world. While national 
interests were involved by the conflict and apt to be affected 
by its results, no sane opinion could suppose that the in- 
tegrity of the national territory or what could properly be 
called vital interests were endangered. 

The greatest disturbance was in commerce. In 1793, 
war had found the nation with a merchant marine ready 
Dislocation of ^^ot only to do its own carrying, but also to un- 
commerce dertake much of that of the nations at war; 

in 1914, the country was largely dependent upon the marines 
of the belligerents, and the immediate tying up of the Ger- 
man marine left it for a time ill supplied. It followed that 
the United States was more interested than before in the 
rules and practices of war as they affected the treatment of 
belligerent vessels by belligerents. This interest, however, 
did not carry with it very extensive rights, and the main 
activity of the government was, as it previously had been, 
with the protection of American vessels. 

The policy of the Allies, that is of the powers allied against 

Germany, Austria, and Turkey, was similar to that which 

r, ^ ^ ^ Great Britain had pursued in the conflict with 

Contraband i • i z-v i 

and continuous Napoleon, but somewhat snnpler. On the one 

^°^^^^ hand they wished to kcei) the oceans open for 

their commerce, on the other, to cut off Germany and 

Austria from all connection with tlie outside world. By the 

early months of 1915 the first object had been practically 

accomplished in all seas except those within the radius of 

action of submarines having their bases on the German or 

Belgian coasts. The accomplishment of the second was 

rendered difficult by the fact that several neutral countries, 

Italy, Switzerland, Holland, and Denmark, abutted on Ger- 



THE GREAT WAR 493 

man or Austrian territory, and that the Baltic remained in 
the control of the German fleet, thus protecting intercourse 
with the outside world through Norway and Sweden. To 
close these channels, the Allies resorted to the doctrines of 
contraband and of continuous voyage. The attitude which 
the United States had assumed in the Civil War, rendered 
it difficult for her to protest against a rather rigorous inter- 
pretation of the latter doctrine. With regard to contra- 
band, the most serious question arose in connection with 
cotton. The decreased demand for this article constituted 
the most serious economic effect of the war on the United 
States. When it was proposed in addition to class it as 
contraband, thus checking its export to Germany, a vigorous 
and effective protest was made and it was left as a legitimate 
article of neutral trade. 

That the Allies were slow in resorting to blockade was due 
to the changed conditions of naval warfare, which made it 
more dangerous than before to patrol a hostile 
coast line. Their inability to control the Baltic, 
moreover, rendered the effect of a regular blockade doubt- 
ful. In February, 1915, however, Germany, on the ground 
that the Allies were exceeding their rights as belligerents 
by declaring all foodstuffs contraband regardless of whether 
they were intended for combatants or non-combatants, 
announced a quasi-blockade of the British Isles by sub- 
marines. The Allies responded by declaring, first a virtual 
blockade of Germany and Austria, and then, on our 
complaint at its unusual nature, a real blockade. They 
argued that they were in a position to carry out the spirit of 
the law of blockade, though not its letter. This clash of 
decrees called to mind that between Napoleon and Great 
Britain, each power defending its position, not in law, but 
on the ground of retaliation. The effort of both to conciliate 
American opinion, however, marked a decided change. The 
German policy was directed only against belligerent ships, 
though neutrals were warned that they might incur danger; 



494 AMERICAN DIPLOMACY 

the Allies promised compensation for all financial losses under 
the operation of their system. Analogous to these questions 
were those with regard to the use of mines. Although the 
Hague Conference had drawTi up rules regulating their 
employment, whether of the floating or anchored variety, 
actual warfare produced situations which were unpro- 
vided for, and which involved the security of neutral 
commerce. 

The desire of the United States to improvise as rapidly 
as possible a merchant marine, led to a revival of the question 
Transfer of of the transfer of merchant vessels from bellig- 
vessels erent to neutral powers, which had so much 

angered the American public during the Civil War. The 
Declaration of London of 1910 had prohibited such transfer, 
and to this the United States had adhered, but doubtful 
cases remained. In 1915 the Dacia, sailing from the United 
States to Germany, was seized by France on the ground 
of illegal change of o^Tiership, and became the occasion for a 
test case. 

A matter which attracted even more attention was the 
sale of contraband to belligerents. There was no question 
Trade in that international law sanctioned such trade; 

contraband j^ ^j^g merely subject to the risk of interference 

by the opposing belhgerent. The supplying of the demands 
for such articles, moreover, did much to offset the industrial 
distress caused by the dislocation of customary occupations. 
On the other hand, in the actual conditions of the war, such 
trade was confined to the Allies and was of substantial assist- 
ance to them. The act of Congress, moreover, authorizing 
the President to suspend such trade in the case of conflicts 
in America, had created a disposition to regard such pro- 
hibition as a step in international progress. Consequently 
a strong demand arose in the United States, backed by the 
elements favorable to Germany and by many of those op- 
posed to all war, that the government put a stop to the 
traffic. The administration, however, refrained in this ciuse 



THE GREAT WAR 495 

as in others from deviating in any way from the estabHshed 
practices of neutraHty. 

The United States government, indeed, followed a policy 
strictly conservative. It refused to act on the protests re- 
ceived from the various countries based on al- „ ,. 

. , . .... Policy or 

leged acts of their opponents m violation of the United States 

laws of war. It followed established practice in 8°^^™™®° 
all cases where precedent existed, and where it did not, 
based its policy on reasoned implications from previous cases 
of a similar nature. When the practices of the belligerents 
seemed to it to constitute violations of the laws of nations 
and at the same time to infringe the rights of Americans, it 
did not have recourse to bombastic complaint, but expressed 
its views in carefully drawn protests which might serve as 
bases for reclamations at the return of peace. The predica- 
ment of Americans caught abroad at the beginning of the 
war was handled with energy. Congress voted money to 
assist them, the government undertook the forwarding of 
private funds during the time that private exchange was 
suspended, and naval vessels were sent to bring home those 
who could not secure other accommodation. To encourage 
the development of the merchant marine the administration 
proposed a national corporation in which the government 
should be a stockholder, but Congress failed to approve this 
suggestion. 

Congress equally failed to change its policy with regard 
to national defense. The support of the navy was continued 

upon the scale previously fixed, but neither it 

1 e 1 • 1 T. 1 !• Public opinion 

nor the army were lurther increased, rublic 

opinion took up this question, but divided upon it. On 

the one hand it was urged that the United States was ill 

prepared to face contingencies which the continuance of war 

or the conclusion of peace might very possibly produce. 

Many believed that the new conditions resulting from the 

war would inevitably detach the United States from so much 

of its policy of isolation as still remained, and that it must be 



49G AMERICAN DIPLOMACY 

prepared to play its peart as a world power. On the other 
hand, the movement for disarmament, supported by those 
who believed that judicial settlement might be substituted 
for war, received new impulse from the horrors of modern 
warfare. Many of the leaders of this movement were as 
dissatisfied with the government as were those favoring 
greater armaments. They wished the President to take the 
lead in bringing about peace by offering mediation. The 
great majority of the people, however, accepted the lead of 
the administration. Although extreme utterances on every 
side of every question attested the existence of free speech, 
the press and conversation alike reflected a very general 
following of President Wilson's advice that the spirit as well 
as the letter of neutrality be kept, and as yet (April, 1915) 
the war has not become in any way a party question. 



CHAPTER XXXVI 

SUCCESS AND ITS CAUSES 

Our diplomacy has, on the whole, served the national 
needs and purposes exceptionally well. No other nation 
has been confronted so continually by the problem of neu- 
trality, and for none has it assumed such protean shapes; 
yet it is impossible to see how we could, with foreknowledge, 
have improved our handling of it in any large way. For 
no other nation has the problem of protecting its citizens 
abroad been so difficult, owing to the great numbers of our 
naturalized citizens and the variety of their origin; but at the 
present day, and for a long time past, an American pass- 
port is nowhere inferior to any other certificate of nationality. 
Although our merchant flag was ill-treated during the wars 
of the French Revolution and the Napoleonic period, we 
won for it later, in the teeth of Great Britain, a freedom al- 
most unique. 

The policies for the building up of our merchant marine 
and the furtherance of our commerce have been chiefly de- 
termined by internal considerations, but diplomacy has in 
all cases eventually, though with difficulty, laid open the 
path for the execution of those policies internationally. The 
government has been able to offer our people as great op- 
portunities for the exercise of their activities beyond the 
national boundaries as any other nation has enjoyed; our 
Newfoundland fisheries, for example, have been even more 
caressingly watched over than have those of France. It 
has also successfully protected them in the enjoyment of 
their national resources, the only important exception being 
the practical destruction of the seal herd of Behring sea. 
The territory desired by our people for their expansion has 

497 



498 AMERICAN DIPLOMACY 

been obtained, excepting to the north. There, meeting the 
equal force of Great Britain, we are left with a straight line 
as the result of the impact. The study of the measuring 
of each stretch of that line, however, reveals the fact that we 
obtained all that we had the power to demand. 

Erratic and experimental divergencies in our diplomacy 
have been few. Of these, Jefferson's embargo must be consid- 
ered the greatest, and it was diplomatically unsuccessful and 
disastrous. To err with Napoleon, however, does not indicate 
lightness of mind; and the embargo in the United States, like 
the continental system in Europe, hastened an internal devel- 
opment that was sure to come. Our many and varied attempts 
at an unnatural expansion failed because they were unnatural, 
and left no serious effects. Our foreign wars have all been 
turned to account — even that of 1812, which was saved from 
being a national calamity only by the skill of our diplomats at 
Ghent. 

This success has rested upon a continuity, both of detail 
and of general policy, which is remarkable in a nation that 
in a hundred and fifty years has gone through all the stages 
of evolution from a second-rate colony to a great power. 
This continuity must in a considerable degree be attributed 
to that juristic tone which until very recently has been a 
predominating factor in our public life. Well advised in the 
beginning, particularly by Franklin, we accepted a system of 
international law which appealed to our ethical sense and 
fitted our position and interests. To this we clung with an 
unequaled persistence and exactitude, and it is in large part 
through our efforts that this system has become the basis 
of the accepted international law of to-day. 

That in handling innumerable petty cases and frequent 
pressing crises we were able to preserve an impressive con- 
sistency of practice, was not primarily due to the efforts of 
our diplomatic staff in foreign countries. Efficient as it was 
at some periods, and brilliant as have been some of the men 
composing it at every stage, it had after 1829 no element of 



SUCCESS AND ITS CAUSES 499 

cohesion, unless between 1897 and 1913, and it has at all 
times been marred by the presence of incompetent or unsuit- 
able individuals. The home administration of diplomacy, 
however, has exhibited a continuity of service and a conspic- 
uous ability which give it rank with our supreme court. John 
Jay, John Quincy Adams, William Hunter, and John Bassett 
Moore cover the whole period of our diplomacy, and repre- 
sent an almost constant service within the state department 
or easy availability for advice to it. Other series equally 
striking may be named. Jefferson and Buchanan were al- 
ways powerful, and for much of the time in control, from 
the beginning of independence to Civil war; Seward and 
Hay, from 1849 to 1905. William Hunter and A. A. Adee 
together served in the state department from 1829 to the 
present day (1915); counting the years when they over- 
lapped, their combined service falls just six years short of a 
century. Such personal oversight has meant a growth from 
precedent to precedent which has gradually resulted in a 
self-carrying tradition for those minor matters that do not 
reach the public ear.^ 

The consistency with which general policies have been 
applied in the greater episodes, as such have arisen, is due 
to the force of a governing public opinion. It is probably 
true that the growth of democracy has made diplomacy 
more difficult in most countries than it previously had been. 
That the reverse has been true in the United States has been 
due, in the first place, to the juristic habit of mind already 
mentioned. The Monroe Doctrine has been popularly re- 
garded as a law; its successive extensions have been looked 
upon in the same light as the new powers which the courts 
have successively found by implication in the constitution. 

More important has been the simplicity of our leading and 
essential policy. The harmonizing of conflicting ideas, 
when they have presented themselves, has proved beyond our 
grasp. The one deliberate purpose which our diplomacy has 

^ Gaillard Hunt, Department of State of the United States, N. H., 1914. 



500 AMERICAN DIPLOMACY 

completely failed to bring about has been that of winning 
the sympathy and acquiring the leadership of Spanish Amer- 
ica. The reason is obvious; not the sentiment of Pan-Amer- 
icanism, but the deep-seated nationalistic conception of 
United States dominance, has primarily moved us. From 
the day in 1794 when Wayne rode round the British fort at 
the rapids of the Maumee and dared its commander to fire, 
we have, with the exception of brief periods after the first 
abdication of Napoleon and during the Civil war, been the 
dominant American power. In 1823 we announced the 
fact to the world, and at the same time first became generally 
conscious of it ourselves. Every corollary added to the Mon- 
roe Doctrine has been a renewed assertion of the fact, and 
has presented an added means of maintaining it. 

Dominance is not a policy but a talent: the responsibility 
is for its use. Our employment of our position has rested 
upon a feeling that long antedated it, that even antedated 
our ancestors' migration to America. They wanted to be let 
alone, the colonies in 1776 wanted to be let alone, to seek their 
future in their own way. In return they were willing, not 
exactly to let every one else alone, but at least to confine 
their activities to the limits within which they were actually 
in control. Franklin rejected the idea of colonial representa- 
tion in the English Parliament; he wished not legislative 
participation in the empire, but legislative independence 
within the colonial area. This was the reverse side of the 
Monroe Doctrine. In America we were dominant; by con- 
fining our activities to America we could be dominant 
wherever we were active. It is this simple and fundamental 
idea that has impressed itself on the American mind, and 
has become the touchstone by which public opinion judges 
all diplomatic questions. With such a task as keeping ad- 
justed a balance of j)ovver, democracy is j)robably incomjic- 
tent to deal, with its accustomed practicality the democracy 
of America has determined that it will have no balance of 
power in America, and will not meddle with it where it exists. 



INDEX 



INDEX 



Aberdeen, Lord, Mexican policy, 
253, 262, 270; Oregon, 267. 

Abyssinia, treaty with United States, 
469. 

Acadia, French, boundary dispute, 
230. 

Adams, Charles F., minister to 
England, 8, 306, 316, 321, 372; 
instructions, 319; protests deliv- 
ery of Confederate rams, 322, 340; 
successor, 340; in Geneva board, 
347; characterized, 306; cited, 
322, 382. 

Adams, David J., fishing- vessel, 
seized, 376. 

Adams, John, diplomat, 1, 115, 188; 
commissioner to France, 38; Hol- 
land, 38; peace commissioner, 41, 
46, 48; minister to England, 52, 
59, 60, 83, 372; commercial 
treaties, 54; treats with Barbary 
States, 56; arranges Dutch loan, 
78; vice-president, 81; president, 
130; appointments, 131, 138; 
French policy, 133, 134, 137-139; 
views on neutrality, 92; on isola- 
tion, 211; characterized, 38, 39; 
cited, 34, 39, 59, 60, 92, 133. 

Adams, John Q., diplomat, 2, 8, 
241, 306, 429. 499; mission to 
Prussia and Sweden, 129; at Ber- 
lin, 143; minister to Russia, 163, 
170, 179, 188; on commission to 
England, 179; on Ghent commis- 
sion, 180, 183, 185; secretary of 
state, 188; president, 188, 214; 
fisheries policy, 192; trade, 199; 
Florida, 199-202, 208, 341; Span- 
ish-American, 207-218, 297; slave- 
trade, 237; objects to British co- 
operation, 210-214, 293; Pan- 
American policy, 214, 215, 284, 
478; slave-trade, 237; Texas policy, 
246, 247, 250-252; member of 



Congress, 227, 256; supports Jack- 
son, 228; argues VAviisted case, 
239; minister to England, 372; 
characterized, 188, 222; opinions 
cited, 81, 104, 120, 126, 140, 189. 

Adams, Samuel, gains foreign sym- 
pathy, 24; predicts separation of 
East and South, 41. 

Adams, William, peace commission- 
er, 180. 

Adee, A. A., service in state depart- 
ment, 499. 

Adet, P. A., minister to United 
States, 127; recall, 128, 130; 
Canadian intrigues, 131; western, 
131. 

Adler, German warship, 400. 

Admiralty Courts, organized by 
Genet, 99; British, 111, 112, 114. 
122, 156, 157. 236, 339. 

Africa, trade with United States, 
55, 85; Napoleon's dealings with, 
131; slaves returned to, 239; 
pirates of, 351; international 
relations, 464. 

Aguinaldo, Emilio, Philippine leader, 
420. 

Aix-la-Chapelle, treaty of, 16. 

Alabama, Confederate cruiser, 339; 
claims against, 345; commission 
on, 347. 

Alaman, Louis, Mexican secretary, 
cited, 243; warnings heeded, 247; 
Texan views, 252; views on Amer- 
ican expansion, 481. 

Alamo, story of, 248. 

Alaska, Russian fur-trade, 209; 
purchase of, 358, 398, 406, 478, 
487; seal industry, 377, 434; 
boundary dispute, 432; settled, 
434; status of inhabitants, 421. 

Alaska Commercial Company, seal- 
ing monopoly, 377. 

Albert, Prince, labors for peace, 
317, 



503 



504 



INDEX 



Aldrich, Sen. Nelson, on reciprocity, 
388, 471. 

Alexander I, of Russia, fosters 
Holy Alliance, 204; foreign policy, 
179. 

Alexander II, of Russia, emancipa- 
tor. 312. 

Alexander VI, Pope, confirms Span- 
ish claims, 10; demarcation line, 
11, 12. 391. 417. 

Alexis. Grand Duke, visits Amer- 
ica. 3G0. 

Alfonso XII, king of Spain, 365. 

Algcciras, conference at. 402; United 
States takes part. 464. 

Algiers, official piracy, 55. 56; holds 
Americans as slaves. 56; treaty 
with. 85; raids Atlantic, 114; 
American expedition against, 141; 
French capture, 223; Dey of, cited, 
141. 

Aliens, control of, 80. 

Allegheny River. 17. 

Allen, Ethan, head of Cuban com- 
mittee, 409. 

Alvcrstone, Lord Chief Justice, on 
Alaskan boundary commission, 
434. 

Amazon River, navigation of, 287. 

Ambrister, R. C, hanged. 200. 

I' Ambuscade, captures LitUe Sarah, 
103. 

Amelia Island, privateers use, 200. 

American Fur Co., rivals. 173. 

American Revolution, diplomacy 
during, 1, 23; causes, 35; Euro- 
pean interest in, 24, 25; piracy. 56; 
after effects on commerce, 62; 
frontier loyalty, 67, 69; trade 
during. 70, 81. 108. 

Americans, relations with Indians. 
64-06. 72. 74. 116; sympathies in 
French Revolution, 95, 9(i; man 
French privateers, 98. 102. 

Ames, Fisher, supports Jay treaty, 
122; cited, 86, 144, 121. 

Amiens, treaty of, 143. 

VAminted, slave carrier, case tried, 
239; as precedent, 368. 

Amoy, port opened, 223. 

Am.sterdam, printing centre, 24; 
financial, 34; market, 35; burgo- 
master, 36. 

Amy Wartvick, admiralty case, 307. 



Andrew, Gov. J. M., Trent affair 
pleases, 316. 

Angell, J. B., on Chinese commission, 
398. 

Anglican Church, position in United 
States, 52. 

Antelope, admiralty case, 237. 

Apia (Samoa), consular intrigues 
in, 399, 401. 

Appalachian Mountains, as bound- 
ary, 98. 

Appalachicola River, as bound- 
ary, 19. 

d'Aranda, Count, Spanish minister, 
33; treats with Jay, 44, 142. 

Arbitration, familiar to English 
colonists, 22; of boundaries, 186; 
of slave indemnity, 191; Indian 
annuities, 194; northeast bound- 
ary, 228, 234; Creole case, 239; 
northwest boundary, 270; seizure 
of fishing vessels, 287; idea of 
permanent, 279; fisheries, 285; 
Civil war claims, 344-347; Geneva 
court. 347, 348; of Spanish-.\mer- 
ican claims, 350; Cuban claims, 
367; Portuguese, 375; French, 375; 
fisheries, 375; sealing rights, 378; 
between American powers, 385, 
386; proposed in Venezuelan dis- 
pute, 392, 393; in Maine affair, 
414; of Alaska boundary, 432. 434; 
of fisheries. 435; Pan-American 
court of. 451; Venezuelan claims, 
447; other claims, 469; "Pious 
fund" claims, 474; scope, 340, 
474, 475; American advocates of, 
472, 473; treaties, 474, 475, 481; 
Spanish- American practice of. 473, 
474. 

Arbuthnot, Alexander, hanged, 200. 

Archangel, port open. 16,'). 

Argentine Republic, commercial 
treaty with, 285. 287; later rela- 
tions, 324; European relations, 
32.5; competition with, 373; lUd- 
ian immigration, 384; diplomatic 
service to, 430; foreign minister, 
446; dispute with Chile, mediated, 
451; attitude toward United 
States, 452; recipnx-ity treaty 
with, 470; offers mediation, 490. 

Arizona, New Mexico includes, 
279. 



INDEX 



505 



Arkansas, early history, 253; emi- 
grants, 257. 

Armed Neutrality. See Neutrality. 

Armenians, status in United States, 
466. 

Armstrong, Gen. John, letter cited, 
150; minister to France, 170. 

Arnold, Benedict, at siege of Que- 
bec, 75. 

Aroostook River, trouble in valley, 
230, 235. 

Arthur, C. A., president, 370; ap- 
pointments, 370; reciprocity 
policy, 388. 

Ashburton, Lord, treats with Web- 
ster, 233, 234, 237; views cited, 
233; letter to, 239. 

Asia, trade with United States, 54, 
196, 223; diplomatic activity in, 
353, 477; American interests, 464. 

Asquith, H. H., premier, Mexican 
policy, 485. 

Astor, J. J., plans for Northwest, 173. 

Astoria (Ore.), founded, 173, 254; 
American flag over, 185; prop- 
erty title, 185; Americans lose, 
265. 

Atlantic cable, effect on diplomatic 
intercourse, 300, 316, 371. 

Austin, Stephen, rouses sympathy 
for Texas, 248. 

Austria, offers mediation, 41; war 
with France, 95; signs Holy 
Alliance, 204; quells Italian re- 
volt, 204; England seeks alliance, 
240; extradition treaty, 284 
returns Kotzka to United States 
289; mediator, 324, 375, 383 
policy toward Maximilian, 333 
irritation against United States 
333, 426; trade-mark treaty, 351 
naturalization, 356; Russian re- 
lations, 359; Cuban, 366; reciproc- 
ity with, 389; diplomatic service 
to, 430; policy in Far East, 458; 
war policies {1915), 492. 

Azores, Islands, as boundary, 10. 

B 

Babcock, Gen. O. E., San Domingo 
mission, 362, 363. 

Bacon, Sen. A. C, Mexican pol- 
icy, 486. 



Baden, naturalization treaty with, 
356. 

Baez, Pres. Buenaventura, annexa- 
tion policy, 361-363. 

Bagot, Sir Charles, minister to 
United States, 191. 

Bahamas, British, trade, 308; posi- 
tion threatens Gulf trade, 360. 

Bainbridge, Capt. William, brings 
"tribute" to Algiers, 141. 

Balkan states, conference of, 468. 

Baltic Sea, control of, 493. 

Baltimore (Md.), trade centre, 161. 

Baltimore, marines from, killed, 390. 

Bancroft, George, minister to Ger- 
many, 355; ability, 255; makes 
treaty, 356; mission to Spain, 361; 
England, 372; cited, 278. 

Banks, Gen. N. P., member of Con- 
gress, 362. 

"The Banks." See Newfoundland. 

Barbados, reciprocity with, 470. 

Barbary States, pirates, 13, 55; 
consular service to, 81; United 
States pays " tribute," 84, 132; 
treaties with, 85, 141, 222; piracy 
stopped, 196, 204, 223; profits of 
pirates, 351. 

Barclay, Thomas, concludes Mo- 
rocco treaty, 56. 

Baring, Sir Thomas, American pol- 
icy, 343. 

Baring Brothers, firm of, 233. 

Barlow, Joel, French sympathy, 96; 
minister to France, 171. 

Barrett, John, diplomatic service, 
430. 

Barron, Commodore James, com- 
mands Chesapeake, 159. 

Basle, treaty of, terms, 123, 130. 

Bassano, Due de, French foreign 
minister, 170. 

Bastile, fall of, 94. 

Bathurst, Lord, treaty interpreta- 
tion, 192; letters to, cited, 82, 181. 

Bavaria, desires commercial treaty, 
53; naturalization treaty with, 
356. 

Baxter, Henry, agent in Hondu- 
ras, 352. 

Bayard, J. A., peace commissioner, 
179, 180, 183. 

Bayard, T. F., secretary of state, 
370, 378, 391, 400, 403; minister 



.506 



INDEX 



to England, 373; Samoan pol- 
icy, 400. 

Buyonne, trade decree, 166. 

Hcaumurchais, Pierre de, agent of 
Vergennes, 26; cited, tl. 

Beauregard, Gen. P. G. T., Engliah 
sympathy for, 314. 

Bockwith, Maj. George, British 
agent, 90; cited, 90. 

Beecher, H. W., English inQu- 
ence, 322. 

Behring Sea, fisheries, 5, 434, 497; 
jurisdiction disputed, 377, 378, 
387. 

Behring Straits, boundary through, 
358. 

Belgium, commercial treaty with, 
285; extradition, 350; trade-mark, 
351; navigation, 352; naturaliza- 
tion, 356; diplomatic service to, 
430; export trade, 452. 

Belize, British settlement, 292, 293; 
boundaries, 295, 381, 382. 

Benjamin, J. P., Confederate secre- 
tary, 311; French policy, 331. 

Benton, W. S., British subject, 
killed in Mexico, 446, 486. 

Benton, Sen. T. H., Oregon views, 
256. 

Berlin, American commissioner to, 
31; Samoan conference at, 401; 
General Act of, 401, 425. 454; 
financial centre, 427; diplomatic 
service to, 455; treaty of, 465. 

Berlin Decree, terms, 158; revoked, 
168. 

Bermuda Islands, ownership, 29; 
American acquisition suggested, 
40; reciprocity with, 470. 

Bermuda, admiralty case, 308. 

Bernard, Montague, on claims com- 
mission, 345. 

Bernhardi, Gen. von, on British 
policy, cited, 333. 

Berthier, Alexandre, cited, 149. 

Biddle, Nicholas, author, 148. 

Bigelow, John, in France, 321. 

Bismarck, Prince Otto von, relations 
with Bancroft, 355; Samoan pol- 
icy, 401. 

liUick Warrior, seized by Spain, 300, 
301. 

Blaine, J. G., diplomat, 8; secretary 
of state, 370, 403; reciprocity ad- 



vocate. 373, 388, 389; arbitration, 
472; Behring Sea contention, 378, 
379; Panama policy, 381, 383; 
Spanish- American. 384-386, 391, 
394, 444; Pan-Americanism, 386, 
478; trouble with Chili, 390; 
presidential ambition, 390; Ha- 
waiian policy, 404; " Elder Sister," 
448; characterized, 371. 387, 390, 
391; cited. 381, 385. 388. 404; 
The Foreign Policy of the Garfield 
Administration, cited. 387. 

Blanca, Florida, Spanish minister, 
26. 

Blockade. See International Law. 

Blount, William, conspirator, 134. 

Bluefields (Nicaragua), British ma- 
rines land at, 383. 

Boer War. impending, 428; diplo- 
matic diflSculties. 431. 

Bogota, American minister recalled, 
440. 

Bogota, Colombian gunboat, 441. 

Bolivar. Gen. Simon, revolutionary 
leader, 89. 203. 206. 

Bolivia, commercial treaty with, 
223, 285, 287; Peru-Chili war, 386. 

Bonaparte, Joseph, King of Spain, 
150, 203. 

Bonaparte, Louis, King of Holland, 
167. 

Bonaparte, Napoleon, dealings with 
United SUites, 8, 101, 138, 139, 
142-146. 148-150. 154, 155, 164- 
170. 175. 178. 201, 209; Africa, 
131; navy defeated, 152; on Louis- 
iana, cited. 145, 146; orders to 
Dantzig, 166; English policy, 155, 
158; at Elba, 155; Russian policy, 
169, 170, 179; fall of, 177, 179; 
continental system, 165, 167, 190, 
493, 498. 

Bond, Sir Robert, Newfoundland 
premier, 434. 

Bond, Phineas. British consul. 87; 
letter cited, 122. 154. 

Borneo, commercial treaty with, 286. 

Boston, i)ort of, 177. 316. 

Boundaries. Northeast, 15, 16. 117, 
186. 228-232. 234; Hudson Bay 
region, 16; Florida, 19, 20, 124; 
Continental Congress discusses, 
40, 46; peace commissioners dis- 
cuss {17S2). 46. 48; {ISllf), 182; 



INDEX 



507 



Cherokee, 72; Northwestern, 194; 
Western, 201, 202; Louisiana, 148- 
151; Canadian-American, 186; 
498; commissions appointed, 186, 
defined, 218; Texas, 266, 271; 
between islands, 337, 347. 

Bounties, to American fishermen, 
193, 194. 

Bowles, W. A., adventurer, 89; 
letter cited, 89. 

"Boxer" troubles, 455, 461. 

Brandy, trade in French, 61. 

Brant, Joseph, Iroquois leader, 65. 

Brazil, settled by Portuguese, 11, 12; 
Portugal loses, 203; empire of, 204; 
slavery m, 236; commercial treat- 
ies, 216, navigation question, 287; 
relations with United States, 324, 
452; Europe, 325; German immi- 
gration, 384; war with Portugal, 
324; represented on Geneva board, 
347; reciprocity with, 389; Brit- 
ish dispute, arbitrated, 394; dip- 
lomatic service to, 430; ofiFers me- 
diation, 490. 

Breda, Treaty of, 14. 

Bremen, commercial treaty with, 
197. 

Bright, John, favors North, 315. 

British America, fisheries, 192; 
trade with, 197; Sumner's pol- 
icy, 341. 

British Guiana, reciprocity treaty 
with, 470. 

Brittany, fishermen of, 108, 110. 

Brougham, Lord, questions British 
policy, 254. 

Brown, John, colonizing schemes, 75. 

Bruni, treaty with, 286. 

Bryan, C. P., diplomatic service, 
430. 

Bryan, W. J., secretary of state, 
448, 480; draws up Colombian 
treaty, 453; note to Balkan States, 
468; arbitration advocate, 473, 
475; Japanese policy, 480; Mex- 
ican, 486. 

Buchanan, James, secretary of state, 
268, 282; minister to England, 
282, 294, 300, 372; mission to 
Spain, 301; president, 282; expan- 
sionist, 281, 282, 297, 300; dip- 
lomatic policy, 304; Calif ornian, 
275; Mexican, 277. 278, 297, 328, 



489; Central American, 295, 296; 
Cuban, 299, 367; opinion of Clay- 
ton-Bulwer treaty, 293; diplomat- 
ic service, 2, 499; characterized, 
282; cited, 278, 297, 328. 

Bucharest, conference of Balkan 
states at, 468. 

Buenos Ay res, revolt in, 203; United 
States envoy to, 206; English in- 
vestments, 215; commercial treat- 
ies, 216. 

Buifalo (N. Y.), Pan-American 
Exposition at, 451. 

Buffer State, of Indians, proposed, 
181, 183, 184, 246. 

Bullock, Capt. J. D., makes ship 
contracts, 339. 

Bulwer, Sir H. L., makes treaty, 
282, 293. 

Bunau Varilla, Panama agent, 441, 
442. 

Bureau of American Republics 
established, 388. 

Burgoyne, Gen. John, surrender, 29. 

Burke, Edmund, friend of America, 
314. 

Burlingame, Anson, mission from 
China, 354. 

Burr, Aaron, at siege of Quebec, 75; 
French sympathies, 104; vice- 
president, 147; conspiracy, 147, 
148. 

Burton, A. A., commission secre- 
tary, 364. 

Bustamante, Anastasio, Mexican 
president, 247. 

Butler, Anthony, minister to Mexico, 
221. 

Butter, trade in, 76, 110. 



Cabot, John, explorer, 10, 13. 

Cadore, Due de, French foreign 
minister, letter, cited, 168. 

Caicos, reciprocity with, 470. 

Calhoun, J. C, a "War Hawk," 
171; secretary of state, 221, 225, 
261, 268; on maritime law ques- 
tion, 238; Texas policy, 261-266, 
272, 298, 342, 363; Oregon, 267- 
269; diplomatic ability, 221, 261; 
letter to, cited, 259; opinions, 261. 

California, Spain holds, 205, 209, 



508 



INDEX 



257; Russian fort in, 209; Russia 
gives up claim to, 213; American 
interests. 2-45. 253, 257-259. 274; 
British, 257-259; Mexico, 274. 
278; gained from Mexico, 279; 
gold discovered, 286. 291; Alaskan 
interest, 358; coast line impor- 
tant, 398; Chinese problem. 397, 
398; Japanese, 462, 480. 

California, Lower, ownership, 275. 

Calvo. Carlos, collection of claims 
theory, 446. 

Cambon, J. M., French ambassa- 
dor, 417. 

Campo Bello Island, Fenians at- 
tack, 338. 

Campos. Gen. Martinez de. Cuban 
governor, 368; campaign, 411. 

Canada, French colony. 13, 17; 
English conquer, 17; ceded, 18; 
trade encouraged, 60; governor- 
generals, 63, 67, 114, 230; French 
sympathies in, 97, 102, 131, 232; 
British loyalty, 153, 178; American 
trade, 176; desires northern New 
York, 181; annexation proposed, 
174, 182, 232, 299; Sumner's view. 
342, 344; Cobden's, 342; fishing 
regulations, 194, 285, 370, 434. 
435; revolts in, 232; reciprocity 
treaty. 285; expires, 376; (1911). 
rejected, 435, 436; Dominion 
organized, 334; Americans pro- 
tost, 336; Fenians invade, 338; 
minister of justice, 345; relations 
with England, 346, 43K 435; 
extradition act, 374; Alaska seal 
interests, 377, 378, 434. 

Canadian Gazette, policy, 181. 

Canals, Hudson-Ljike Champlain, 
197; Erie Canal, 197; Isthmian, 
290. 291. 380. 382. 436-444, 469, 
480, 481. 

Canning, George, dealings with 
J. Q. Adams, 8, 293; minister of 
foreign affairs. 164, 188, 206, 237, 
293, 334, 382; rejects Erskine's 
agreement, 105. 166; Spanish- 
.\merican policy, 210-217; ability, 
189. 215; cited.' 214. 

Cannon. J. (J., introduces war prep- 
aration bill. 413. 

Canovas. del Castillo, Antonio, 
Spanish prime minister, death, 413. 



Canso. Gut of. waters closed, 193. 

Canton, trade with, 55, 286. 

Cape Cod, blockade south of, 176; 
north of. 177. 

Cape Horn, route via, 286. 

Cape Verde Islands, as boundary, 10. 

Caracas (Venezuela), intrigues in, 
89; American agent at, 385. 

Caribbean Sea. privateers, 207; 
commerce, 286. 360; American 
interests, 444. 448, 450-452, 464, 
477, 479. 481, 489. 

Carmichael. William. American min- 
ister to Spain. 123. 

Carnegie. Andrew, presents arbi- 
tration palace, 451; peace palace. 
473; pacifist. 473. 

Carnegie Institution. historical 
study, 244. 

Caroline, Canadians seize, 232, 233; 
case settled. 234. 

Carranza, Gen. Vincenzio, denies 
authority of Hucrta, 484; consti- 
tutionalist leader, 486; not recog- 
nized, 489. 

Carroll, John, appointed bishop. 52. 

Cartier, Jacques, American discover- 
ies, 13. 

Cass, Lewis, minister to France, 
240; secretary of state. 241. 282. 

Castlcreagh, Lord, in peace negotia- 
tions, 179; instructs commis- 
sioners. 182; slave-trade policy, 
236. 

Catherine II of Russia, doctrine of 
armed neutrality. 37, 179. 

Cattrell. Stephen. Canadian official, 
cited, 67. 

Central America, commercial treaty 
with, 216, 285; route via, 290; 
neutrality guaranteetl, 293; Amer- 
ican immigration, 296; status of 
British Honduras, 382; United 
States acquires territory in, 436; 
arbitration court, 451. 

Civil service reform, development, 
431. 

Civil war, diplomacy during, 3; 
neutral rights, 6; encourages hu- 
manitarianism, 241; diplomatic 
ctTi'cts, 331, 368; Irish enlistments, 
3,'{8; commercial straits. 360; 
claims against England. 3:^9-348. 

Chalcurs, Bay of, boundary, 20, 230. 



INDEX 



509 



Chamberlain, Joseph, protection 
advocate, 427. 

Champlain, Lake, as boundary, 20; 
settlements along, 67; battle on, 
178; outlet, 231. 

Charles III, of Spain, vacillation, 
26, 31. 42. 

Charles V, of Germany, colonial 
policy, 12; foresight, 290. 

Charleston (S. C.) British agents 
at, 90, 310; Genet reaches, 98; 
schemes in, 99; French privateers 
at, 103; British Consul at, 310. 

Chatham, Earl of. See William 
Pitt. 

Cheese, trade in, 58. 

Chesapeake, affair with Leopard, 159, 
165, 174. 

Chile, commercial treaty with, 223; 
relations strained, 375, 390, 409; 
accepts mediation, 385, 451; 
Boll via- Peru war, 386; president, 
cited, 387; civil war, 390; resents 
United States arrogance, 452; 
offers mediation, 490. 

China, trade with United States, 55; 
commercial treaty with, 223, 286; 
five ports opened, 223; open to 
missions, 286; Burlingame treaty, 
354; missionary interests, 396, 455, 
460; Boxer troubles, 455-457; 
emigration question, 397, 398, 449, 
460; diplomatic service to, 430; 
international interests in, 454, 455; 
relations with Japan, 455, 461; 
United States, 432; integrity of, 
456-458, 459, 463, 477; neutrality 
recognized, 458; "six power" 
loan, 460; revolution, 459; arbi- 
tration, 475. 

Chinese, employed in Pacific coast, 
286; exclusion of, 397, 398. 

Canadian problem, 432. 

Chincha Island, Spain's claims, 327. 

Ching, Prince, represents China, 
457. 

Choate, Rufus, Senator, report 
cited, 225. 

Chocolate, trade in, 108. 

Choiseul, Due de, predicts American 
Revolution, 25. 

Christopher Island, ownership, 35. 

Church of England. See Anglican 
Church. 



Claiborne, W. C. C, governor of 
Orleans territory, 151. 

Claims, Spanish-American, 226, 284, 
350, 375, 469; French spoliation, 
226-228, 375; Mexican, 251, 274, 
328, 350, 375, 474; Civil war, 
339-348; British, 344, 469; Rus- 
sian, 469; Portuguese, 375; against 
Tycoon, 353; Spanish, 410; prob- 
lems under Monroe Doctrine, 
446; Treaties, 226, 345, 375. 

Clarendon, Lord, British minister, 
295; convention with Johnson, 
rejected, 343. 

Clark, G. R., takes western forts, 
33, 69; colonizing schemes, 75; 
French sympathy, 97; PVench 
commission, 102; forces separa- 
ted, 105. 

Clark, William, explorer, 148. 

Clarkson, Thomas, opposes slave- 
trade, 236. 

Clay, Henry, a "War Hawk," 174, 
178; peace commissioner, 179. 
180, 185, 189; attacks administra- 
tion, 189, 206; secretary of state, 
189, 214, 291; Pan-American pol- 
icy, 214, 284, 478; conciliates 
France, 228; influence of, 371; 
characterized, 189; cited, 291. 

Clayton, J. M., secretary of state, 
282; English treaty, 282, 292, 293. 

Cleveland, Grover, appointments, 
370, 372, 389; free trade advocate, 
373; fisheries policy, 376; canal, 
382; Pan-American, 387; Vene- 
zuela, 391; opposes reciprocity, 
388; conception of Monroe Doc- 
trine, 392, 394; Hawaiian policy, 
405, 406; Cuban, 409, 412; Turk- 
ish, 465; civil service under, 431; 
cited, 382, 394. 

Coahuiia, Texas joined to, 247, 248; 
governor, 484. 

Coasting trade, embargo not applica- 
ble, 160, 177; cut off by war, 177; 
canal tolls exemption, 437. 

Cobden, Richard, American views, 
cited, 341, 342. 

Cochrane, Admiral Thomas, aids 
Spanish-America, 206. 

Cockburn, Sir Alexander, on Geneva 
board, 347. 

Cocoa, trade in, 119, 153. 



510 



INDEX 



Coffee, trade in, 108, 109, 119, 153, 
iJ8-t; in McKinley tariff, 388. 

Collol-d'Hcrbois, Jean M., French 
agent, 134; instruclioos, cited, 
131. 

Colombia, commercial treaty with, 
216; United Stales influence, 217, 
385; extradition, 285; Panama 
neutrality treaty (/S//6), 291, 295, 
379, 380, 385, 439, 440; grants 
de Lesseps canal concession, 379; 
boundary dispute, 385; affected 
by reciprocity, 389; diplomatic 
service to, 430, 440; rejects Her- 
ran-Hay treaty, 439; Pearson 
syndicate, 450; treaty {1915), 450; 
resentment against United States, 
452. 

Colon (Panama), revolt in, 441. 

Colonial wars, causes, 15, 16. 

Colorado, Italians lynched in, 427. 

Colorado River, free navigation, 279. 

Columbia River, first white man 
enters, 93; Lewis and Clark, 148; 
Americans settle on, 173; claim, 
253, 267; navigation free, 346. 

Columbus, Christopher, effect of 
discoveries, 10. 

Comet, carries slaves, 238. 

Comly, J. M., minister to Hawaii, 
404. 

Commerce, relations with diplomacy, 
5, 54-57, 77, 85-87, 222, 497; pi- 
rates menace, 55; defence meas- 
ures, 156, 281; non-importation 
agreements, 156, 157; non-inter- 
course, 163, 164. 166, 167; em- 
bargoes, 115, 160, 161; prospers, 

163, 283; declines, 190; war of 
1S12 affects, 187, 196; encourage- 
ment of, 241, 283; consular aid, 
373, 476; balance of trade, 58, 
284, 427. 467; special licenses, 153, 

164, 167, 177; open door policy, 
455; in war of 1915, 492; via 
Scheldt, 5; Danish Straits, 5; 
Spanish colonial 15, 57; Amer- 
ican. 53, 62. 109; Dutch, 109; with 
Uritish North .\merica, 5, 67. 68, 
IIH, 197; Firitish Kmpire. 57-62. 
119. 152; Latin-America, 5, 161, 
286, 287, 452; Asia. 5. 54, 55. 199. 
223, 4.55; Africa, 54, 55; Europe, 
61. 62. 152-154, 156, 159, 163. 



164, 224, 225; West Indies, 5, 6, 
77, 118, 119, 156, 161, 198, 222, 
298; Pacific, 92, 93, 118, 197, 285, 
396, 398, 403. 461, 462; Mediter- 
ranean, 55, 56, 62, 77. 85. 125, 141, 
196. See also Reciprocity and 
Merchant Marine. 

Confederacy, blockade runners, 308, 
309; commerce destroyers. 319, 
336; rams. 322; diplomacy of. 310. 
311. 321, 330; British relations, 
316-319, 321-323, 339; recogni- 
tion of, 442. 

Confederation, diplomacy of, 1; 
British distrust, 60; failures of, 
02, 68. 71, 72, 77, 79, 124; diplo- 
matic problems, 64, 67, 190; 
growth of poi)ulation, 69; West- 
ern problems, 73. 

Conger, E. H., commissioner to 
China. 457. 

Congo Free State, treaty with, 375. 

Congress, creates departments, 80; 
discusses merchant marine. 85-87; 
resentment against England, 87; 
considers Jay treaty, 122; increases 
army and navy, 133; reports to, 
156; non-importation agreement, 
157; special session, 160; passes 
embargo, 100; non-intercourse 
act, 169; war sentiment, 171; de- 
clares war, 174; S[)anish-Aiuerican 
resolutions, 206; neutrality acts, 
207, 232; calls out militia, 230; 
abolishes slave-trade, 237; rtx-og- 
nizes Texan republic, 251; debates 
annexation, 265; annexes, 274; 
Oregon question, 269; receives 
Polk's war message, 276; military 
policy, 281; Mexican policy, 297; 
Cuban, 302; passes Morrill Tar- 
iff, 314; opposes Maximilian's 
empire, 331; refuses Denmark 
treaty, 361; relations to di[)!(>- 
macy, 370; authorizes interna- 
tional copyright, 374; Panama 
canal action, 380, 439: Pan- 
American, 387; Chinese exclusion 
acts, 397. 398; Cuban action, 416. 
425; Phili()|)ine, 425; seal fisheries, 
434; votes lynching indeninities. 
427; canal tolls. 437; abrogates 
Russian treaty, 466; immigration 
policy, 467, 408; refuses ship sub- 



INDEX 



511 



sidies, 469; powers over treaties, 

471; acts on sale of munitions, 483; 

Mexican policy, 485, 48G; aids 

Americans in Europe, 495. 
Connecticut River, source, 231, 

235. 
Connolly, John, British agent, 68. 
Constantinople, American college 

at, 465. 
Constitution, strengthens central 

authority, 79; executive under, 

80, 105; Congress, powers, 80, 
225; ambiguities, 80, 471. 

Constitution, wins fight, 190. 
Consular service, early organization, 

81, 82; growth, 221; "pupils," 
283, 430; commercial importance 
increases, 373; politics dominates, 
373; bill of ISSi, amended, 387; 
improvement in, 430, 431; pop- 
ular interest, 431. 

Continental Congress, first meeting, 
23; measures adopted, 23; mes- 
sage from Beaumarchais, 27; 
parties in, 31, 46; appoints com- 
missioners, 32, 33, 41; members, 
39, 81; considers peace terms, 40, 
41, 44; instructs peace commis- 
sioners, 46; treatment of Loyalists, 
48, 64; relations with Papacy, 51; 
relations with Anglican Church, 
52. 

Contraband. See International Law. 

Convention of 1802, renewed, 202. 

Convention of 1818, terms, 192-195; 
ambiguities, 193. 

Convention of 18^8, terms, 269. 

Convention of 1831, terms, 223. 

Convention for the Arbitration of 
Pecuniary Claims, parties to, 
472. 

Convention on Artistic and Literary 
Copyrights, parties to, 472. 

Convention regulating the Importa- 
tion of Spirituous Liquors into 
Africa, United States adheres to, 
472. 

Convention of London, terms, 328, 
329; United States does not sign, 
328. 

Coolies, importation of Chinese, 
354; smuggling of, 461. 

Cooper, J. F., diplomatic service, 
221. 



Copyrights, international, 351, 374, 
469. 

Corea, treat j' with, 375; separated 
from China, 455. 

Cornwallis, Lord, surrenders, 42. 

Convin, seizes British vessels, 377. 

Costa Rica, commercial treaty, 285; 
boundary dispute, 385; arbitra- 
tion, 475. 

Cotton, trade in, 119, 164, 196, 224, 
225, 253, 262, 284; as "King," 
310, 311, 315, 316, 321; contra- 
band {1915), 493. 

Coudert, F. R., on seal-fisheries 
commission, 379. 

Crampton, Sir J. F. T., British min- 
ister, dismissed, 288. 

Creole, slave mutiny on, 238; case 
settled, 239. 

Crimean war, neutral problems, 288. 

Crockett, David, frontier hero, 248. 

Cuba, United States reversionary in- 
terest, 6, 78, 208-210, 245; owner- 
ship, 203, 205, 206; England's 
relations, 217; seeks independence, 
217; European interest, 282; 
slavery in, 236, 297, 301, 302; 
revolution in, 350; position threat- 
ens Gulf commerce, 360; Santo 
Domingo relations, 326; reciproc- 
ity with, 389, 470; insurrection 
of 1895, 409, 420; methods of 
war, 409, 411, 412; American 
sympathy, 409; interests, 410; 
policy, 297-302, 365, 368, 413- 
419, 425, 426, 427, 444, 449, 478. 
487; Spain promises autonomy, 
413; Roosevelt's service in, 424; 
owns Isle of Pines, 425. 

Culebra Island, sale refused, 361, 

Culebrita Island, sale refused, 1, 
361. 

CuUom, Sen. Shelby, in foreign 
affairs committee, 474; views in 
reciprocity treaties, 470. 

Cumberland River, settlements in, 
69, 102; intrigues of settlers, 77, 
89; junction, 105. 

Curtis, B. R., on Geneva board, 
347. 

Gushing, Caleb, diplomat, 344; on 
Geneva board, 347; minister to 
Spain, 366; instructions, cited, 
366, 367. 



512 



INDEX 



D 



Dacia, seizure of, 494. 

Dallas, G. M., minister to England, 
295. 

Dana, Francis, commissioner to 
Russia, 31, 170; policy, 264. 

Dana, R. H., Trent capture pleases, 
31G. 

Danelson, A. J., United States 
agent in Texas, 273. 

Danish Islands, sale refused, 360, 
361, 425. 

Danish sound, right of free passage, 
5, 287. 

Danton, G. J., French leader, 103. 

Dantzig, Napoleon's orders to, 166. 

Darien, colonists, 205. 

Dauphin, pirates capture, 56. 

Davie, Gov. W. R., on French com- 
mission, 137. 

Davis, Sen. C. K., Spanish treaty 
commissioner, 418. 

Davis, J. C. IJ., prepares American 
claims case, 347. 

Davis, Jefferson, commissions pri- 
vateers, 309, 312, 315; as diploma- 
tist, 310, 312; appointments, 310, 
311 ; message to his Congress, 323; 
IJritish policy, 311; neutral pol- 
icy, 312; Lowell satirizes, 318. 

Davis. R. H., author, 440. 

Day, \V. R., conducts Spanish nego- 
tiations, 414, 415, 418; terms 
cited, 418; secretary of state, 418. 

Dayton, W. L., minister to France, 
331. 

Deane, Silas, agent to France, 23, 
24; reaches Paris, 27; recall, 31. 

Debt, foreign, source of danger, 78. 

Debts, collection of British, 48, 60, 
64, 118. 

Declaration of Independence, effect 
on American policy, 23, 27. 

Declaration of London {1910), 
terms, 494. 

Declaration of Paris, terms, 288, 
309; not signed by United Stiites, 
288, 410; Seward' and. 309; atti- 
tude of Confederacy, 312. 

Delaware River, Swedes settle on, 
14. 

Democracy, American experience 
in, 8. 499, 500. 



Democrats, platform of 1856, cited, 
360. 

Denmark, armed neutrality, 37; 
commercial treaty, 197; claims, 
226; forbids slave-trade, 236; 
Danish sound question, 287; 
Civil war policy, 313; proposed 
cession of St. Thomas, 360, 361; 
reciprocity, 470, 475; neutrality 
problems *( 79/5), 492. 

Detroit (Mich.), British fort, 63; 
garrison, 90; militia, 84. 

Deutsche Handels-und-Plantagen- 
gesell-schaft fiir Sudseeinsein zu 
Hamburg, intersets in Samoa, 399. 

Dewey, George, Mexican coast 
service, 417; capture of Manila. 
417, 420; Philippine views, 419, 
420; made admiral, 423. 

Diaz, Felix, aids Huerta, 483; Japan 
mission, 487. 

Diaz, Pres. Porfirio, length of serv- 
ice, 481; meets Taft, 481; over- 
throw, 483. 

Dickens, Charles, urges international 
copyright, 351. 

Diplomacy, American, birth of, 1; 
golden age, 2; aids expansion, 2; 
politics dominates, 2, 220, 259, 
264, 281, 283, 304, 370; Civil 
war problems, 3; nadir of, 3; 
study of, 4; protects fisheries, 5; 
international routes, 5; popular 
control of, 8; first event in, 11, 12; 
basic documents, 18, 19; early 
problems, 20; colonial experience, 
21, 22; direct metho<ls, 21; rela- 
tions to Congress, 80, 370; to 
parties, 304; service not attract- 
ive, 81, .371, 372; special missions, 
81; consular service, 81, 82, 373; 
organization during Revolution, 
23, 24; successes, 50, 139, 185. 
213, 222; failures, 77, 79, 87, 188; 
gains French support, 31; seeks 
that of Spain, 33; religious prob- 
lems, 52; Western. 73, 77; bril- 
liant perio<l, 188; daring, 213; 
bluff, 271, 295; in Nootka Sound 
affair, 88, 93; in French claims 
case, 226-228; based on neutrality, 
6, 100, 101, 152, 428; recognition 
of new goNcrnments, 101, 208, 
484; secures extradition, 117; 



INDEX 



513 



favors international commissions, 
117, 397; Hamilton's influence, 
138; problems change, 190, 196, 
242, 245, 286, 288, 289, 336, 398, 
401; "shirt-sleeve," 220, 241, 271. 
304, 370, 457; permanent arbitra- 
tion policy, 279; service system- 
atized, 283; relation to commerce, 
196, 284, 286, 406, 471, 476; inter- 
national waterways, 287, 351; 
marine jurisdiction, 287; trans- 
portation policy, 290-295; Cuban, 
298-302, 365-368; triumph of 
Northern, 323; anti-British feel- 
ing a factor, 336, 338; service to 
negro states, 349; extension of 
field, 351, 353, 357, 396, 406; 
significance of Civil war problems, 
368, 369; affected by Atlantic 
cable, 371; social side emphasized, 
81, 372, 430; appointment of am- 
bassadors, 423; represents .admin- 
istrations, 430; affected by Span- 
ish war, 428, 438, 454, 477; high 
standards, 463; "Open Door" 
policy, 458, 477; "Dollar" di- 
plomacy, 459, 476; peace move- 
ment, 472; continuity, 4, 188, 429, 
475, 498, 499; broken, 370; per- 
sonal, 8, 22, 137, 180, 188, 189, 
220, 221, 242, 261, 283, 304, 498, 
499. 

Dissenters, favor North, 315. 

Divine right, doctrine of, 204, 205, 
207, 209, 211. 

Dolphin, admiralty case, 308. 

Dominican Republic, Cuban rela- 
tions, 326; Spanish, 327, 329; 
American, 344, 384; first treaty 
349; annexation proposed, 361- 
364; mediation accepted, 390; rec- 
iprocity treaty with; public debt, 
446; United States protectorate, 
448, 484; revolution in, 484. 

Dooley, Mr., on diplomatic service, 
cited, 371. 

Dorchester, Lord, Canadian Gov- 
ernor-general, 67; injudicious 
speech. 83, 114, 116. 

Dorset. Duke of, cited, 60. 

Douglass, Frederick, commission sec- 
retary, 364. 

Drago, L. M., public debt doctrine, 
446, 447. 



Droit d'aubaine, abolished, 54, 224. 

Droit detraction, abolished, 224. 

Dumas, C. W. F., friend of Frank- 
lin, 26. 

Dumauriez, Gen. C. F., letter cited, 
96. 

Durham, Lord, Canadian report, 
232. 

Dutch, plunder Spanish colonies, 13; 
settle in Hudson, 13; cede Amer- 
ican claims, 14; England gives 
neutral rights, 14, 36; theory of 
international law, 29, 54; smug- 
glers, 35; neutrality aids American 
Revolution, 22, 35; consider 
armed neutrality, 38; England 
declares war on, 38; relations with 
Indians, 65 ; loan to United States, 
78; cede western Guiana, 391. 

E 

East, sectional interests, 71, 98. 

East India Company, monopoly, 54. 

East Indies, trade with, 197. 

Eastport (Me.), British demand, 182. 

Ecuador, commercial treaty with, 
223; extradition, 350; natural- 
ization. 356; claims. 375; reciproc- 
ity, 470. 

Edward VII, of England, arbiter, 
451. 

Egan. Patrick, minister to Chili, 
390. 

Egypt, French expedition to. 136; 
treaty with United States. 375. 

Elba, Island of. Napoleon at, 155. 

Elbe River, navigation opened. 352. 

Elliot. Capt. Charles. British agent 
in Texas. 265. 266. 

Ellsworth, Oliver, chief justice. 137; 
on French commission. 137. 

Emanuel, admiralty case. 156. 

Embargo, of 179!/, provisions. 115; 
of 1807, 160; effects. 160-162. 177; 
Washington Irving's ridicule of. 
cited. 161; repeal of, 162; and 
Napoleon, 165, 166; failure, 498. 

Encomium, carries slaves. 238. 

English Channel. Russians fear to 
pass, 359. 

Enterprise, carries slaves, 238. 

Erie, Lake, as boundary, 46; battle 
on, 178. 



oU 



INDEX 



Erskinc, D. M., minister to United 
States, loD; instructions, 164; re- 
call, 165, 166. 

Escquibo River, Dutch on, 391. 

Esuex, admiralty case, 156, 308. 

Ethiopia. See Abyssinia. 

Europe, interest in American Revolu- 
tion, ii, 25; opinion of United 
States (1789), 78; of Jay treaty. 
Hi; Spanish-American attitude, 
203, 204, 324, 325, 328, 385; col- 
lection of debts 447, 449; inter- 
vention in America, 204, 210- 
213, 282, 324, 451; respects 
Monroe doctrine, 218, 324; revo- 
lutions in, 204, 208, 280; expatria- 
tion problems, 289; recognizes 
Texas republic, 259; needs cotton, 
310; balance of power, 3, 184, 205, 
369, 427, 467, 477; interest in Civil 
war claims, 347; protests Russian 
outrages, 359; military system, 
368, 473; opinion of Pan-Amer- 
ican Congress, 387; of acquisition 
of Philippines, 426, 466; inter- 
national agreements, 402; rela- 
tions with Turkey, 405, 466; with 
Far East, 477; emigration prob- 
lems, 467-469; Mexican interests, 
485; War of 1915, 491. 

Evarts, W. H., in Geneva board, 
347; secretary of state, 370, 380, 
382, 386, 391. 

Everett, Alexander, letter of Adams 
to, 207. 

Everett, Edward, minister to Eng- 
land, 262, 372, 403; dispatch on 
Cuba, 282, 299; secreUiry of state, 
282, 294; on Trent affair, 316. 

Executive, relations with Senate, 
428, 471. 

Expansion, American, Mexican view, 
243, 244; historical, 244, 245; 
Sumner's. 342; theory of, 280. 300, 
301, 486, 487-489; leaders, 282, 
297, 300; Central American prob- 
lems. 296; Cuban, :5()0, .302; Alas- 
kan. 3.".8, 369; San Domingo, 362; 
Hawaiian, 404; Philippine, 420; 
Mexican, 486. 489; debated in 
Congress. 364; era of internal, 
337; territorial, 476. 

Exf)alriation. Seelnternational I^aw. 

Extradition. See Internationa! L;iw. 



Fairchild, Lucius, minister to Spain, 
instructions, 385. 

Fall, Sen. A. B., Mexican policy, 487. 

Fallen Timbers, battle at, 84. 

"Family Alliance," provisions, 18, 
32, 88. 

Far East, international interests in, 
454. 

Fauchet. J. A. J., minister to United 
States, 106; dispatches captured, 
120; relations with Randolph. 
120. 121; successor, 127; cited, 
106, 130, 158, 254. 

Federalists, commercial policy, 85; 
British sympathies, 120, 129; 
use of special missions, 144; lose 
control, 139; theories, 140, 147, 
422. 

Fenian movement, American phases, 
338, 341, 347, 356. 

Ferdinand, King of Aragon, 10. 

Ferdinand VIII, restored, 203; co- 
lonial system. 205. 

Filibustering. Cuban, 298. 

Fillmore, Millard, president, 239; 
appointments, 239; Hawaiian pol- 
icy, 403. 

Finances, Revolutionary War debt, 
78; French loan, 97, 101; under 
Hamilton. 82. 97. 

Fish. Hamilton, secretary of state, 
343, 362. 365, 366, 382. 412, 454; 
in British claims commission. 344; 
Isthmian policy, cited, 352; Japan- 
ese. 353. 354; Hawaiian. 403. 404; 
characterized, 365; length of serv- 
ice. 370. 

Fish, trade in. 55. 57, 58. 61, 108, 
163. 196; free entry conceded. 340. 

Fisheries, Congress di.scusses, 40, 41; 
in peace terms {17S2), 43, 45, 48; 
(1812), 182. 185; protection of, 5, 
497; whale. 285; convention of 
1818, 192. 193; bounties. 284; 
treaty of ISoi, 285; expiration of, 
337; treaty of 1871, 3V6. 348. 352, 
375; expiration of. 376; arbitra- 
tion of claims, 375; Blaine's 
policv, 387; disputes, 432, 434, 

^ 435. ' 

Fitzherbert, Alleyne, succeeds Gren- 
ville, 45. 



INDEX 



515 



Florida, as boundary, 12; ceded to 
England, 19; divided, 19; bound- 
aries, 20, 46, 70; Spain desires, 
2G, 32, 33; seizes forts, 33; regains, 
50; England desires, 91, 200; 
France, 143; Indians in, 200; 
boundaries of West, 46, 48, 70, 71, 
124, 149, 150; Pitt's policy, 135; 
United States desires, 144, 181; 
Spanish claims, 199-201; Jackson 
invades, 200, 234; ceded to United 
States, 202, 208, 218, 245, 341; 
United States reversionary inter- 
est, 208, 245; Seminole rising, 250; 
position atfects Gulf trade, 360. 

Florida, Confederate cruiser, 339. 

Flour, trade in, 76, 111. 

Floyd, John, interest in Oregon, 255. 

Forbes, J. M., provisions Sebasto- 
pol, 288. 

Forsyth, John, Secretary of State, 
220. 

Foster, A. J., minister to United 
States, 174. 

Foster, J. W., diplomatic experience, 
304; Secretary of State, 370, 389, 
405. 

Foster, W. E., in British Cabinet, 
315. 

Fouche, Joseph, in Napoleon's cabi- 
net, 167. 

Fox, C. J., opinion on peace terms, 
42; retires, 45; returns to ofBce, 
59; foreign minister, 158; appoint- 
ments, 165; death, 158. 

Foxes, Falmouth family, aid Amer- 
ican prisoners, 30. 

France, claims in America, 13; Eng- 
lish rival, 15; Indians aid, 15; pri- 
vateers, 15; treaties with England, 
16; claims Ohio valley, 16, 17; alli- 
ance with Spain, 18; cedes col- 
onies, 18, 19; aids American Revo- 
lution, 22, 25-27, 30; American 
agents to, 23, 31; secret agents of, 
25; urges Spain to aid, 26; treaties 
with U. S., 29; war with England, 
30, 32; relations with Holland, 36; 
Russia, 37, 38; recognizes Amer- 
ican Independence, 319; reason 
for aiding Americans, 91; attitude 
toward neutrals, 38, 108, 109. 126, 
138; in American peace negotia- 
tions, 42-46, 48-50; protects Cath- 



olics in Orient, 51, 455; payments 
to Barbary pirates, 56; seeks 
American trade, 61; relations 
with Indians, 64, 65; loan to 
United States, 78; in Family Alli- 
ance, 88; National Assembly, 
powers, 92; Convention, 98; Rev- 
olution begins, 94; republic pro- 
claimed, 96; United States recog- 
nizes, 101; war with "tyrants," 
95, 96, 99; hopes for United States 
aid, 96; instructs Genet, 97, 98; 
recalls, 104; Spanish-American 
policy, 97, 106, 130, 213, 214, 299, 
325, 326-333, 384, 385; difficulties 
of Republic, 106; successes, 116; 
triumph of Revolution, 132; trade 
decrees, 127, 128, 166-170; in elec- 
tion of 1796, 130; seeks Louisiana, 
130; friction with United States, 
128, 133, 136; convention of ISOO. 
138; obtains Louisiana, 142, 147; 
English treaty, 143; war with Eng- 
land, 152; non-intercourse act 
affects, 163-165; colonial trade, 
153, 161, 308; diplomatic service 
to, 189, 226, 240, 301, 331, 365, 
429; restores Spanish monarchy, 
204; friction over American claims, 
226-228, 375; forbids slave-trade, 
236; helps suppress, 240; recog- 
nizes Texas, 253; desires Califor- 
nia, 274; Revolution of IS^S, 280; 
extradition treaty, 284; in Crimean 
war, 288; relations with Confed- 
eracy, 309, 311; with Mexico, 312, 
331,359; with Russia, 359; Hawaii, 
403; gains St. Bartholomew Island, 
335; trade-mark treaty, 351; in- 
terests in Asia, 353, 402, 454, 455; 
de Lesseps canal, 381; Spanish 
bondholders anxious, 426; policy 
in Far East, 458; friendly attitude 
to United States, 467; reciprocity, 
223, 224; with, 389, 470, 471, 475; 
interests in Mexico, 482, 484, 486; 
seizes Dacia, 494; fisheries inter- 
ests, 497. 

Francis I, of France, sends colonies, 
10. 

Franco- Prussian war, American neu- 
trality questioned, 350. 

Frankfort, conference at, 36. 

Franklin, Benjamin, diplomat, 1, 8, 



51G 



INDEX 



18, 188; general agent, 21, 26, 27, 
30; popularity in Paris, 28, 99; 
French sympathies, 95; tact, 30; 
minister to France, 31, 311, 321; 
peace commissioner, 41, 44, 45, 49; 
deaUngs with papal nuncio, 51, 52; 
with Barbary States, 56; makes 
commercial treaties, 54; Adams 
disapproves, 39; outvoted, 46; 
ability, 429; characterized, 27, 28; 
influence endures, 498; cited, 39, 
43, 49, 53, 56; letter to, 

Fraser River, claim to valley, 267. 

Frederick the Great, attitude toward 
neutrals, 38; statue presented, 
467. 

"Fredonian Republic," proclaimed, 
247. 

Freeman, E. A., History of Fed- 
eral Government from Foundation 
of Achaian League to Disruption 
of United States, cited, 314. 

Frelinghuvsen, F. T., secretary of 
state, 370, 385, 387, 391; Panama 
policy, 381; Nicaragua, 382. 

Fremont, J. C, explores California, 
258, 274. 

French colonists, negotiate with 
English, 21. 

French Institute, papers before, 131. 

French Revolution, affects America, 
1; dawn of. 94; Terror, 94, 95; 
effect on trade, 108; diplomacy 
during, 132. 

French Spoliation Claims, 138, 139. 

Freneau, Philip, editor, 103. 

Frontier, transportation on, 63; 
character of population, 63; In- 
dian peril, 65, 66, 82-84, 172, 249, 
250; loyalty develops, 82, 147, 245; 
friction with Rritish, 116, 172- 
174, 2.30; favors war, 174; Cana- 
dian friction, 232, 233; ambi- 
tions, 245. 

Frye, Sen. W. P., letter to cited, 388; 
Spanish treaty commissioner, 418. 

Fuchow, port opened, 223. 

Fundy, Ray of, tributaries, 228. 

Fur trade, in Ohio valley, 16; im- 
portance, 55, 93; effect of Treaty 
of Paris, 64; nationalitv of traders, 
172, 182; rivalries, ' 172, 173; 
American policy, 192; in Oregon, 
255. 



Gadsden, James, concludes treaty, 
290. 

Gaines, Gen. E. P., Indian campaign, 
250. 

Gallatin, Albert, secretary of treas- 
ury, 141; estimates, 154; peace 
commissioner, 179, 180, 183, 185; 
European respect for, 180, 189; 
arranges arbitration, 230, 267; let- 
ters to, cited, 208, 237; missions 
to England, 372. 

Gallican party, in Continental Con- 
gress, 31. 

Galveston (Tex.), United States 
occupies, 200; fleet at, 482. 

Gambier, Lord, peace commissioners, 
180. 

Gardoqui, Don Diego de, Spanish 
representative, 33, 57, 70, 71, 75, 
77. 

Garfield, J. A., president, 370; ap- 
pointments, 370; foreign policy, 
384. 

Gayoso de Lenns, Manuel, Spanish 
commandant, 76; cited, 123. 

Geary Act, passage of, 398. 

Genet, Edmund C, minister to 
United States, 96; instructions, 
96-98, 131; cited, 98; correspond- 
ence, 129; reaches Charleston, 98; 
Philadelphia, 99; cabinet discusses, 
99, 125; recognized, 101; intrigues, 
101-103; recall demanded, 103; 
appeals to i)eople, 103; recalled, 
104; cited, 103; successor, 106; 
disturbing factor, 107. 

Geneva, Alabama claims commis- 
sion at, 345; international inter- 
est, 347. 

Geneva Convention, rules of war, 
472. 

George III, of England, 23; asks 
Russian support, 37; letter of 
Loi'' t' ., 30; library, 59; eon- 
ve. ain.n with John .^dams, cited, 
59, 60; Indian regard for, 66; loses 
colonies, 89. 

George \, arbiter, 451. 

Georgia, boimdary disputes, 19, 20; 
retaliatory laws, 61. 

Georgia, Strait of, as boundary, 270. 

Gerard, C. A., FreQcb minister, 41. 



INDEX 



517 



Germany, diplomatic service to, 221, 
224, 355, 429, 430; commercial 
treaties with, 224, 225, 471; extra- 
dition, 284; Civil War policy, 313; 
arbitrates channel boundary, 347, 
348; forms Empire, 350; natural- 
ization treaties, 355, 356; Cuban 
relations, 366; Spanish- American 
trade, 384, 452; Samoan relations, 
399-401, 425; colonial ambition, 
401, 419. 420, 426, 454, 455; rank 
of navy, 424; policy in Far East, 
458; friendly feeling for United 
States, 467; interests in Mexico, 
482, 484, 486, 487; war policies 
(1915), 492. 

Gerry, Elbridge, commissioner to 
France, 131, 132. 

Gettysburg, moral effects of battle, 
322. 

Ghent, peace negotiations at, 2, 180, 
188, 345, 498; checked, 183; con- 
tinued, 184; concluded, 186. 

Gibraltar, Spain wants to regain, 
26, 43, 44, 49. 

Gibraltar, Straits of, Portuguese 
fleet guards, 114. 

Gillespie, Lieut. A. H., sent to Mont- 
erey, 274. 

Ginn, Edwin, pacifist, 473. 

Ginseng, commercial importance, 
55, 93. 

Girondists, fall of, 103. 

Gladstone, W. E., colonial policy, 
342; American, 343, 347, 356; 
cited, 320. 

Goderich, Viscount, in claims com- 
mission, 345. 

Godoy, Don Manuel, Spanish states- 
man, 143. 

Goliad, story of, 248. 

Goulburn, Henry, peace commis- 
sioners, 180, 183; British minister, 
246. 

Grain, trade in, 55, 58, 61, 67, 108, 
110, 315, competiti' ' 373, 
tariff, 388. 

Grant, Ulysses S., victories, 322; 
opinion of French policy in Mex- 
ico, 332, 343; president, 335; Mon- 
roe Doctrine corollary, cited, 335, , 
478; foreign policy, 343, 344, 361, 
365; appointments, 347; message 
cited, 368. 



Granville, Lord, in British Cabinet, 
320; on Clayton-Bulwer treaty, 
381, 382. 

Gray, Capt. Robert, enters Colum- 
bia River, 93, 148. 

Gray, Sen. George, Spanish treaty 
commissioner, 418. 

Great Britain, defeats Armada, 13; 
Florida ceded to, 19; Spain makes 
war on, 32; negotiates with, 33; 
treaties with {1763), 70, {1783), 
70; French colonial rival, 15; treat- 
ies with France, 16; Canada ceded 
to, 18; claims in America, 13, 14; 
desires Ohio valley, 17; European 
hatred of, 24; Franco- American 
alliance against, 29, 30; friction 
with Holland, 35, 36; war, 38; 
payment to Barbary pirates, 56; 
discusses American peace terms, 
42-50; distrusts Confederation, 
60, 61; first American minister, 87; 
in Nootka Sound affair, 88-93; 
resists French Revolution, 94, 95, 
203, 205; war with France, 99, 
152; Napoleon's policy toward, 
155, 158, 169; pride in victory 
over France, 180; United States, 
trade, 57-63, 86, 87, 198, 222, 
285; embargo affects, 161; non- 
intercourse act, 163, 165; relations 
with neutrals, 14, 36-38, 102, 
105, 108, 110, 118, 163; interna- 
tional law position, 54, 110-116, 
124, 129, 159, 168, 169, 179, 183, 
191, 193, 197, 236, 241-309, 316, 
339, 349, 350; need of impress- 
ment, 113; naval supremacy, 14, 
108, 152, 189, 237; trade policy, 
59, 60. 153, 154, 156-160, 164, 
198, 199, 205, 206, 270; orders in 
council. 111, 112, 120, 156, 159, 
161. 164. 168, 169, 177. 183; holds 
frontier forts. 63, 64, 84, 116. 178; 
agrees to evacuate, 117; frontier 
policy, 68. 116. 147; Louisiana. 134, 
135; relations with Indians, 64- 
66, 68, 82. 83, 116, 172. 182. 185, 
292, 294. 295, 383; friction with 
United States, 114, 174; pays in- 
demnity, 118; in War of 1812. 
174-178; peace negotiations, 178- 
185; convention of 1818, 192- 
195; dislike of America, 181; 



518 



INDEX 



upholds balance of power, 205; 
Spanish-American policy, 206, 
209-217, 324, 33-t, 384; anti- 
siavcry, 21C, 236, 246, 2o3, 254, 
262, 263-265, 298, 301, 321, 333, 
367; Oregon, 254-257. 265, 267- 
271; Texas, 253, 254, 260-266, 269- 
271; California, 257-259, 269, 274, 
275; spoliation claims against, 226, 
Northeastern boundary dispute, 
228-232, 234; Canadian policy; 
232, 294, 348, 378, 432, 434, 435, 
464; diplomatic service to, 188, 
189, 222, 278, 282, 294, 295, 300, 
306, 340, 343, 344, 372, 373, 429, 
430; high grade of, 372; in Crimean 
war, 288; Russian relations, 359; 
central American policy, 292-290; 
Clayton-Bulwer treaty, 293, 381, 
382; Cuban policy, 299, 366, civil 
war policy, 310-323, 359; after- 
math, 336, 339-344; claims com- 
mission, 344-348; in relation to 
Monroe Doctrine, 333, 343; in- 
terests in Asia, 353; expatriation 
problems, 356; in seal-fisheries dis- 
pute, 378, 379; Venezuela affair, 
391-394; Japanese relations, 353, 
397, 402; Saraoan, 399-401, 425; 
Hawaiian, 403, 405; rank of navy, 
424; cordial toward United States, 
427, 428; exports, 452; policy in 
Far East, 454, 455, 458; authorizes 
reciprocity with colonies, 470; 
Russian treaty {1825), 432; Alaska 
boundary dispute, 432, 434; fisher- 
ies, 435; seal fisheries treaty, 434; 
Isthmian policy, 436-438; canal 
tolls dispute, 480; interests in 
Mexico, 482, 484, 486; war pol- 
icies {1915), 492. 

Great Lakes, navigation rights, 
432. 

Greece, insurrection in, 204, 212; 
Americans aid, 207; commercial 
treaty with, 223. 

Green, B. E., views in California, 
259. 

Green, Duff, confidant of Calhoun, 
264; in Tcxiis, 265. 

Greenville, treaty at, 84, 122. 

Grenville, Lord, foreign minister, 
87, 89, 90, 116, 117, 122. 

Grenville, Thomas, British minister 



to France, 42; additional powers, 
44; recalled, 45; 

Grenville, VV. VV., letter to, cited, 
67. 

Gresham, W. Q., secretary of state, 
389; death, 392. 

Grey Earl de, on claims commis- 
sion, 345. 

Greytown (Nic), English seize, 
292. 

Guadaloupe Island, rich in sugar, 
18; exhange proposed, 49; trade, 
108, 134. 

Guam Island, ceded to United 
States, 419. 

Guantanamo (Cuba), naval station, 
444. 

Guatemala, commercial treaty with, 
285; boundary dispute, 385, 386. 

Guiana, boundary disputed, 391, 
394. 

Guillemot, Eugene, agent to Uru- 
guay, cited, 325, 326. 

Guizot, F. P. G., French premier, 
240. 

Gunn, James, Georgia Senator, 135. 

Gwin, Sen. W. McK., Alaskan pol- 
icy, 358. 

H 

Hague, The, American minister to, 
136. 

Hague Conference {1S99), called 
by Czar, 473; acts of, 473, 494; 
{1907), endorses modified Drago 
Doctrine, 447; recommendations, 
475. 

Hague Permanent Court of Arbi- 
tration, 8, 453; functions, 444; 
settles fisheries dispute, 435; Vene- 
zuelan claims submitted to, 449; 
established, 473; palace presented, 
473; Spain and Mexico resort to, 
474; scope of jurisdiction, 474. 

Ilahnville (La.), Itiilian lynched at, 
427. 

Haidiinan, Gen. Frederick, refuses 
to surrender frontier ports, 63. 

Halo, J. 1'., minister to Spain, in- 
slruclions, 328. 

Hale, Sen. W. G., tariff views, 388. 

Halifax, American trade, 177; route 
via, 182, 230; admiralty court, 157. 



INDEX 



519 



Hamburg, commercial treaty with, 
197; interests in Samoa, 399. 

Hamilton, Alexander, financial pol- 
icy, 82, 97, 106; meets English 
agent, 90; English sympathies, 
91, 92, 95; French policy, 99-101, 
136-138; differs with Jefferson, 
99, 104, 125; Republicans distrust, 
115; intimacy with British minis- 
ter, 120; stoned, 120; commands 
army, 135; cited, 135. 

Hammond, George, British minis- 
ter, 64, 87, 181; frontier policy, 
116; successor, 122. 

Hammond, J. H., letter to, cited, 
264. 

Hannegan, E. A., Indiana senator, 
vote, 279. 

Hanover, commercial treaty with, 
224; navigation, 352. 

Harmer, Gen. Josiah, Indians de- 
feat, 83. 

Harris, Sir James, British diplomat, 
37. 

Harrison, Benjamin, presidential 
ambition, 390; counsel for Ven- 
ezuela, 394; appointments, 304, 
370. 

Harrison, W. H., Indian dealings, 
172. 

Hartford Convention, proposed, 184. 

Hartly, David, commission, 58. 

Harvard University, Germanic Mu- 
seum, 467. 

Hats, Leghorn, trade in, 55. 

Havana, route via, 316, 410, 411; 
Maine destroyed in harbor, 413. 

Hawaii, American relations, 223, 
245, 286, 297, 352, 353, 360, 362, 
402-406, 424, 487; missionaries 
in, 402; British, 403, 405; Jap- 
anese, 461, 462. 

Hawkins, Sir John, colonial dreams 
of, 205. 

Hay, John, diplomat, 8, 188, 499; 
secretary of state, 304, 429; am- 
bassador to England, 429; deal- 
ings with England, 431, 434, 436; 
Canada, 434; Panama, 441; China, 
455-458; views on Drago Doc- 
trine, 447; Turkey, 464; Rou- 
mania, 468; arbitration attitude, 
473-475; characterized, 429, 457; 
cited, 368. 



Hayes, R. B., president, 304; ap- 
pointments, 304, 370; on Mon- 
roe Doctrine, 394; Chinese ex- 
clusion, 397; Panama canal pol- 
icy, message cited, 380. 

Hayti, negro republic, 217, 264; 
diplomatic relations with, 349, 
375; affected by reciprocity, 389; 
arbitration treaty with, 475. 

Heber, Bishop Reginald, mission- 
ary zeal, 255; "From Green- 
land's Icy Mountains," 255. 

Hemp, trade in, 110. 

Henfield, Gideon, arrested, 102. 

Henry VII, of England, sends Ca- 
bot's expedition, 10. 

Henry, Prince, visits United States, 
467. 

Henry, John, British agent, 174, 
176. 

Henry, Patrick, gains foreign sym- 
pathy, 24; refuses mission to 
France, 137. 

Hermosa, carries slaves, 238. 

Herran, P. A., Colombian minister, 
arranges treaty, 439, 443. 

Herrera, J. J., Mexican president, 
275. 

Hervey, Lionel, British agent in 
Mexico, 215; recall, 215, 216. 

Hesse, naturalization treaty with, 
356. 

Hides, in McKinley tariff, 388. 

Hill, D. J., diplomatic service, 429. 

History Teachers'' Magazine, cited, 
243. 

Hoar, E. R., on British claims com- 
mission, 345. 

Hoar, Sen. George, cited, 442. 

Holland, claims in America, 13; 
decline, 14, 110; trade during 
Revolution, 22, 34-36; war with 
England, 38, 43; treaty with 
United States, 39; in American 
peace negotiations, 44-46; peace 
with England, 50; diplomatic ser- 
vice to, 81, 140, 188; American 
trade, 164, 167. 

Holland, war with France, 95; 
France annexes, 167; neutrality 
problems, 492; Japanese rela- 
tions, 353, 402. 

Holmes, O. W., greeting to Alexis, 
cited, 360. 



520 



INDEX 



Holy Alliance, terms, 204; failures, 
208; relations with England, 237. 

Honduras, Bay of, English in, 292, 
294, 29/5; Honduras, Isthmus of, 
route via, 295; treaty concerning, 
352; English occupation, 381, 
382; Honduras, Republic of, rec- 
iprocity with, 389; public debt, 
44G, 459; American protectorate, 
448; forcible intervention, 449; 
treaty with, 459. 

Honolulu, gunboats in harbor of, 
405. 

Hopewell, treaty of, 83. 

Horses, trade in, 58. 

Horseshoe Bend, battle at, 178. 

Hortalie, Rodriguez, and Company, 
aids American Revolution, 26. 

House of Representatives, relation 
to diplomacy, 80, 121; to Senate, 
225, 428; impeachments, 134; res- 
olutions, 331, 334; speakers, 171, 
413; members, 86, 227, 300; 
Fenian sympathy, 338. 

Houston, Samuel, Tennessee gov- 
ernor, 248; Texas leader, 248- 
250, 200. 

Howe, John, British agent, 176. 

Howe, S. S., on San Domingo com- 
mission, 364; aids Greece, 207. 

Howick, Lord, issues order in coun- 
cil, 159; dispatch, cited, 159. 

Hudson, Hendrik, American dis- 
coveries, 13. 

Hudson Bay, rival claims, 16; Brit- 
ish control trade, 118. 

Hudson Bay Company, American 
rival, 173; absorbs Northwest- 
em Co., 186; in Oregon, 255; 
protect priests, 256; claims nego- 
tiated, 344. 

Hudson River, Dutch colony on, 
13, 14. 

Huerta, Gen. Victoriano, govern- 
ment not recognized, 479, 483, 
489; defeats Madero, 483; presi- 
dent, 483; European recognition, 
483, 486; Japan policy, 487. 

Hughes, Archbishop John, visits 
Ireland, 338. 

Huguenots, massacre of French, 
12. 

Hlilseman, Baron, Austrian minis- 
ter, 282. 



Humphreys, David, minister to 
Spain, 140. 

Hungary, revolution in, 281. 

Hunter, R. M. T., Confederate secre- 
tary, 310. 

Hunter, William, service in state 
department. 307, 418, 499. 

"Hunters' Lodges," organized, 233. 

Huron, Lake, as boundary, 46, 186, 
235. 

Huskisson, William, British trade 
policy, 198. 

I'Huys, Drouyn de, French foreign 
minister, 331; cited, 332. 



Iberville River, as boundary, 19, 
149-151. 

He d'Orleans, ceded to England, 19. 

Illinois, emigrants, 257. 

Immigration, Chinese, 397, 398, 
449, 460; Japanese, 461; European, 
467-469; Roumanian, 468; un- 
due stimulation of, 469. 

Imperialism, United States dis- 
claims, 280, 281; tendency toward, 
423-426. 

Impressment. See International 
Law. 

Independence (Mo.), emigrant cen- 
tre, 257. 

Indiana, Indian tribes, 65, 84; ter- 
ritorial governor, 172. 

Indians, in colonial wars, 15; in 
War of 1812, 178; Continental 
Congress, seeks support, 23; sell 
lands, 172; "buffer sUite" pro- 
posed, 181, 183, 184, 246; fur 
trade, 192; annuities, 194; among 
frontier population, 63; relations 
with English. 6.>, 66, 114, 116, 
118, 172, 182, 185; Americans, 
65, 66, 69, 72, 172; Cherokee, 
treaty, 72, 83; intrigues, 89; 
Chickamauga, 72; Chickasaw, 72; 
ChocUiw, 72; Creeks. 72; chief, 
73, 83, 89; treaty, 83; intrigues, 
89; Delaware, 65; Florida, 200, 
201, 250; Iroquois, relations with 
English, 17; colonial negotiations 
with, 21; power of confederacy, 
64, 65; Miami, 65; Mosquito, 
British relations, 292, 294, 295, 



INDEX 



521 



383; Northwestern tribes, 65; 
Oregon, missions to, 255, 256; 
Texas, 248-250; Shawnee, 65; 
Southwestern, 72; Spanish trade 
with. 73, 74, 123; raid against, 76; 
Wyandot, 65; Yucatan, 296; 
wars with, 83, 84, 117; treaty, 
122, 182. 

Industrial Property, Act for Pro- 
tection of parties to, 472. 

Industrial Property, Convention 
for International Protection of, 
374. 

Inness, Harry, colonizing schemes, 
75. 

International co-operation, 374, 378. 

International Institute of Agricul- 
ture, 472. 

International law, tendencies, 7; 
affecting colonial claims, 17; in- 
formal system, 21; continental 
views, 54, 111; rights of foreign- 
ers, 53; strain of Napoleonic 
wars, 187; armed neutrality, 37, 
110, 179; blockade. 111, 119, 159, 
168, 169, 174, 175, 177, 288, 307- 
312, 315, 493; building enemies' 
ships, 340, 342; collection of 
debts, 446, 447; continuous voy- 
age, 308, 309, 318, 492, 493; con- 
traband. 36, 54. 100. 111. 119, 
124, 128, 129, 138, 154, 288, 318, 
442, 493, 494; embezzlement, 235; 
expatriation, see naturalization; 
extradition, 117, 235, 284, 350, 
351, 374, 388, 469; flag, use of, 
240, 312, 367; free ships, free 
goods, 29, 36, 54, 110, 119, 124, 
129, 138, 207, 288; hospital ships, 
472; impressment, 113, 157-159, 
164, 175, 182, 289, 356, 492; in- 
demnity. 182, 191, 238, 239; 
marine territorial jurisdiction, 
287; mines, 494; most favored 
nation, 224, 464, 465; naturaliza- 
tion, 7, 114, 289, 355-357, 466, 
468, 491; navigation, right of, 70, 
71, 119, 197. 285, 287, 378, 380, 
388; neutral goods in enemies' 
ships, 288; privateering, 54, 102, 
103, 105, 106, 119, 288, 309, 416; 
prizes, 102, 105. 118, 119, 124; 
recognition of governments, 442, 
484; "Rule of 1756." terms, 112; 



validity of treaties, 99-101, 191; 
violation of territory, 234; visit 
and search, 54, 113, 157, 159, 164, 
236, 237, 239, 241, 282, 309, 316, 
318, 349, 350; waterways, 5, 70, 
197, 287, 291; wounded, treat- 
ment of, 288, 472. 

International office of Public Health, 
parties to, 472. 

International Red Cross Conven- 
tion, signatories, 472. 

International Sanitary Convention, 
parties to, 472. 

Ireland, colonies appeal to, 23; 
Fenians plan to free, 338. 

Irish, political power in United 
States, 338, 390. 

Isabella, Queen, of Castile, 10. 

Isabella, Queen of Spain, over- 
thrown, 365. 

Isle of Pines, given to Cuba, 425. 

Italy, United States trade, 166; 
commercial treaty, 471; revolt 
in, 204; Civil War policy, 313; 
represented in Geneva board, 347; 
Kingdom of, 350; extradition 
treaty, 350; offers mediation in 
Cuba, 366; emigration to Argen- 
tina, 384; United States, 469; 
irritation over lynchings, 426, 427; 
American ambassador to, 429, 
430; interests in Far East, 455, 
458; arbitration treaty. 475; neu- 
trality problems 1915, 492. 

Itata, seized, 390. 

Izard, Ralph, commissioner to Tus- 
cany, 31; dislikes French, 34. 



Jackson, Andrew, deals with Flor- 
ida Indians, 200; seizes Spanish 
forts, 200, 201; diplomatic serv- 
ice under, 220, 304; methods, 
241; problems of policy, 480; ap- 
pointments, 221, 248. 250; Brit- 
ish policy, 222; French, 226-228; 
Texas, 250, 252, 265, 341; mes- 
sages cited, 227, 228, 251. 

Jackson, F. J., minister to United 
States, 165, 176. 

Jacobins, American club, 99. 103. 

Jamaica, position threatens Gulf 
trade, 360; reciprocity with, 470. 



523 



INDEX 



Jameson, J. F., views on American 
expansion, 243, 244. 

Japan, commerce with, 286; Perry's 
expedition, 286, 303; American 
relations, 353, 396, 461-463, 480; 
European, 353, 402; commercial 
treaty with, 397, 454; arbitration, 
475; seal fisheries, 434; protests 
Hawaiian annexation, 424; dip- 
lomatic service to, 430; affected 
by Monroe Doctrine, 449, 450; 
world-power, 454, 459; relations 
with China, 455, 458; war with 
Russia, 458; Manchurian policy, 
459, 461; Canadian, 461; Mex- 
ican, 486, 487. 

Jay, John, diplomat, 1; commis- 
sioner to Spain, 32, 33; distrusts 
Spain, 34; France, 34, 44-46, 91, 
137; in peace negotiations, 44-46, 
58, 74, 142; secretary of foreign 
affairs, 57, 70, 71; mission to 
England, 115, 126, 128, 372; in- 
structions, 115; welcome, 116; 
concludes treaty, 84, 117-119; 
error in, 119; burned in effigy, 
120; views on French treaty, 99; 
chief justice, 81, 115; Mississippi 
proposal, 417; independent action 
371; length of service, 499; char- 
acterized, 32; cited, 32, 34. 

Jecker and Company, firm of, buys 
bonds, 329. 

Jefferson, Thomas, peace commis- 
sioner, 41; makes commercial 
treaty, 54; treats with IJarljary 
sbites, 56; minister to France, 54, 
81; secretary of state, 81; resigns, 
104; views on merchant marine, 
85, 86, 196; on validity of treaties, 
99, 100; on expansion, 476; on 
neutrality, 102. 103, 100; on iso- 
lation, 211, 438; French sympa- 
thies, 95, 136; fears Kngli.sh, 91 
differs with Hamilton, 99, 125 
presidential candidate, 129, 130 
president, 140; ap|)ointments, 141 
157, 158; problems of policy, 480 
Barbary states policy. 141, 222 
Cuban, 208, 209; Louisiana, 144 
145. 148; trade, 155-157, 190, 
498; closes American harbors 
160; Madison consults, 163 
length of public service, 499 



theories, 140, 154, 160, 165, 181; 
justifies Louisiana purchase, 442; 
cited, 28, 85, 86, 91, 95, 106, 208, 
209, 470. 

Jews, protest against persecution 
of, 357; treatment by Roumania, 
468. 

Johnson, Andrew, president, 362, 
365; message, cited, 362. 

Johnson, Reverdy, treats with Eng- 
land, 340, 373; convention re- 
jected, 343. 

Jones, Anson, president of Texas, 
266, 272. 

Jones, J. P., American commodore, 
30; enters Texel, 36; French sym- 
pathies, 96. 

Juan de Fuca, Straits of, channel, 
337, 348. 

Juarez, Gen. B. P., resists French 
in Mexico, 332; captures Maxi- 
milian, 333. 

Juarez (Mex.), fighting at, 482. 

K 

Kaiulani. Hawaiian princess, 404. 

Kamamaha, King of Hawaii, 402. 

Kanakas, employed on Pacific coast, 
286. 

Kaskaskia (III.), Clark captures, 
33, 69. 

Kasson, J. A., on Samoan commis- 
sion, 401; reciprocity treaty com- 
missioner, 470. 

Kentucky, relations with England, 
67, 68; pioneers, 09; governor, 102; 
intrigues with Spain, 76, 123; 
France, 102, 105; constilutional 
convention, 76; admitted to 
Union, 82; militia praised, 174. 

Key West, position isolated, 300; 
importance of railroad to, 444. 

Kiauciiau, port leased, 455. 

King, Rufus, minister to England, 
129, 135, 189. 372; successor, 158; 
suggests Philippine trade con- 
cessions, 417; fears loss of West, 
71; cited, 13.-); letter to, cited, 137. 

King's Mountain, battle of, 69. 

Kipling, Uudyard, White Man's 
Burden, cited, 421. 

Knox. (ien. Henry, secretary of 
war, cited, 83; letter to, cited, 84. 



INDEX 



523 



Knox, P. C, secretary of state, 448, 
459, 483; visits Caribbean states, 
452; proposes Colombian treaty, 
453; Chinese policy, 459; " dollar 
diplomacy," 476. 

Koerner, G., minister to Spain, in- 
structions, 327. 

Kossuth, Louis, visits America, 
280, 281. 

Kossta, Martin, case of, 282, 289. 

Kwangchau Bay, port opened, 223; 
port leased, 455. 

Kwang-Chow. See Kwangchau. 



Labrador, fisheries, 192. 

Ladrone Islands, American inter- 
ests, 418, 419. 

Lafayette, Marquis de, American 
sympathy, 27, 94; proscribed, 99. 

Laird, William, British ship-builder, 
322, 340. 

Lakes, Great, trade route, 68; navi- 
gation rights on, 182, 191, 346. 

La Plata River, navigation of, 287; 
dispute over mouth of, 325. 

Lard, trade in, 225. 

Laredo (Mex.), fighting at, 482. 

Larkin, T. O., consul at Monterey, 
274. 

La Salle, Robert Cavalier, Sieur de, 
explorer, 201. 

Laurens, Henry, commissioner to 
Netherlands, 31, 38; captured 
on ocean, 38; peace commissioner, 
41; imprisoned, 42. 

Laurier, Sir Wilfred, government 
defeated, 436. 

Lazzari, Mgr., diary of American 
Revolution, 24. 

Leather goods, trade in, 373. 

Lebrun, C. F., letters to, cited, 96, 
102. 

Leclerc, Gen. V. E., San Domingo 
expedition, 143; death, 145. 

Lee, Arthur, deals with Beaumar- 
chais, 27; commissioner to France, 
31; irritates Spain, 31; dislikes 
French, 34. 

Lee, Fitzhugh, consul-general at 
Havana, 412, 415. 

Lee, R. E., surrender, 331. 

Lee, William, commissioner to Ber- 



lin, 31; meets de Neufville, 37; 
drafts treaty, 37, 38. 

Legare, H. S., secretary of state, 
221; Hawaiian policy, 403; death, 
260. 

Leishman, J. G. A., diplomatic 
service, 430. 

Le Louis, admiralty case, 236. 

Leo XHI, proposed as Cuban me- 
diator, 414, 415. 

Leonard, aflFair with Chesapeake, 
159, 174. 

Leslie. See Panton, Leslie and Co. 

Lesseps, Ferdinand de, head of 
canal company, 380, 439. 

Lew Chew Islands, commercial 
treaty with, 286. 

Lewis, Sir G. C, American views, 
320. 

Lewis, Meriwether, explorer, 148. 

Lexington, Battle of, rouses America, 
159. 

Liberia, American relations, 349; 
international receivership, 464. 

Li Hung Chang, represents China, 
457. 

Liliuokalani, Queen of Hawaii, 404; 
abolishes constitution, 405. 

Lincoln, Abraham, compared with 
Franklin, 28; diplomatic influence, 
305, 306, 310, 317, 322; appoint- 
ments, 304-306, 354; proclaims 
blockade, 307, 315; English opin- 
ion of, 314; Emancipation proc- 
lamation, 321; effects, 321; letter 
to London working-men, 322; 
private secretary, 429; political 
wisdom, 457; problems of policy, 
480; cited, 304. 

Lincoln, Robert, minister to Eng- 
land, 373, 392. 

Lind, John, mission to Mexico, 485. 

Linn, L. F., Missouri senator, 255; 
Oregon bill, 256. 

Liston, Robert, British minister, 
122, 134. 

Little Belt, fights President, 174. 

Little Democrat, French privateer, 
103. 

Little Sarah, captured, 103. 

Livingston, Edward, House leader, 
121; diplomatic ability, 220; 
death, 220. 

Livingston, Robert, secretary of 



524 



INDEX 



foreign affairs, 23, 57; minister to 
France, 140, 146, 149, 150, 226, 
227; letters to, cited, 34, 53, 92. 

Lodge, H. C, Senate leader, 428; 
on Alaskan boundary commis- 
sion, 434; seal 6sheries, 379; Mag- 
dalena Bay resolution, 450, 487; 
immigration views, 4G7. 

Logan, Dr. George, peace mission, 
136. 

L6me, Dupuy de, Spanish minister, 
indiscretion, 413. 

London, 73, 81, 123, 129, 165, 180, 
210, 262, 429, 455; interest in 
American Revolution, 24; loses 
American trade, 35; distributing 
centre, 61; financial, 362, 427; fur- 
market, 64. 

Lopez, Gen. Narcisco, Cuban leader, 
298; death, 299. 

Louis XVI, interest in America, 25; 
adopts middle course, 260; recog- 
nizes American Independence, 
30, 42; powers, 92; beheaded, 99; 
American treaty, 100. 

Louis Napoleon, Civil War policy, 
313, 330, 331; colonial plans, 313; 
Mexican, 329-333; offers media- 
lion, 330; British relations, 334. 

Louis Philippe, American policy, 
227. 

Louisburg, English capture, 15, 16; 
give back, 16. 

Louisiana, French possession, 17; 
ceded to England and Spain, 19; 
England desires, 91, 134; France, 
97, 98, 102, 130; Spanish policy, 
73, 74, 123, 124; governor. 75; 
cedes to France, 142, 143; France 
to United States, 145, 146, 165, 
188, 199, 224; problems, 147; 
boundaries, 148-151, 185, 194, 
202; loyalty doubtful, 181; effect 
of purchase, 187; justification of, 
443. 

Lourengo Marques Railroad, seized 
by Portugal, 375. 

L'Ouverture, Toussaint, rules San 
Domingo, 134, 136; captured, 143. 

Lowell, J. R., diplomatic service, 
221, 373; "Bigelow Papers," 
cited, 318. 

Loyalists, interests safeguarded, 48; 
leniency recommended, 60; treat- 



ment of, 64; settle in Ontario, 66; 
in Natchez, 71; bitter feeling, 66; 
in War of 1812, 178; compensation 
refused, 118. 

Liibeck, commercial treaty with, 197. 

Lumber, trade in, 58, 67, 346. 

Luzerne, Anne Cesar de la, French 
minister to United States, 33; in- 
structions, 50. 

Lyons, Lord, British minister, 317. 

M 

Macdonald, Sir J. A., on claims 
commission, 345. 

McGillivray, Alexander, Creek chief, 
73; visits New York, 83; rival, 89; 
cited, 77. 

Machinery, farm, trade in, 373. 

McClellan, Gen. G. B., fails before 
Richmond, 320. 

McKean, Thomas, Pennsylvania 
judge, 136. 

McKenzie, Alexander, explorer, 254. 

MacKenzie, A. S., confers with Santa 
Anna, 276. 

Mackerel, trade in, 58, 108; desert 
Canadian waters, 375. 

McKinley, W'illiam, elected presi- 
dent, 408; appointments, 412, 
429; Cuban policy, 413; Hawaiian, 
424; Philippine,"^ 419, 420; de 
Lome's opinion of, 413; forbids 
privateering, 416; civil service 
under, 431; proposes Pan-Amer- 
ican Congress, 451; foreign policy, 
476; cited, 419. 

McLane, Louis, secretary of state, 
220; minister to England, instruc- 
tions, 222. 

McLaughlin, Dr. John, Hudson 
Bay Co., factor, 255. 

McLeod, Alexander, case of, 233, 
234. 

Macon Bill, No. 2, provisions, 167. 

Madagascar, treaty with, 349. 

Madawaska, French fief, 230. 

Madero, Francisco, leads revolution, 
482; elected president, 483; over- 
thrown, 483. 

Madison, James, diplomat, 8; mem- 
ber of Congress, 80; declines office, 
104; secretary of state, 141; Flor- 
ida policy, 149-151; minister to 



INDEX 



525 



England, 158; president, 163; 
re-election, 175; foreign policy, 
163, 211; British, 165, 168-170, 
174, 179, 184; English resent- 
ment, 181; views, cited, 100, 158; 
letter to, 209. 

Madison Island, annexation, 398. 

Madrid, 33, 73, 130, 150, 327, 361, 
410. 

Madrid, Treaty of, 14. 

Magdalena Bay, Japanese interest 
in. 449, 487. 

Magellan, Ferdinand, circumnavi- 
gates world, 11. 

Mahan, Rear Adm. A. T., naval au- 
thority, 423. 

Maine, boundary dispute, 230, 234, 
235, 272; lumber trade, 346. 

Maine, destruction of, 413; cause 
disputed, 413, 414; arbitration 
offered, 415. 

Malietoa, King of Samoa, 400. 

Malmesbury, Earl of. Southern 
sympathy, 314. 

Malta, desires United States trade, 
55. 

Manchester, Duke of, commission, 
58. 

Manchuria, relations with Japan, 
459. 461. 

Mangouret, M. A., French consul, 
99. 

" Manifest Destiny," theory of, 199, 
200, 296, 301; scouted by Carl 
Schurz, 364. 

Manila, captured by Dewev, 417, 
419; held by United States, 418; 
German attitude, 419. 

Manila Bay, battle of, 417, 420. 

Manufactures, growth of, 284. 

Marbois, Barbe, French agent, 145, 
146; Memoire, captured, 45. 

Marcy, W. L., dispatch on Koszta 
case, 282, 289; secretary of state, 
282, 283, 285, 288, 297, 300, 302; 
reciprocity treaty, 337; fisheries, 
352; relations with Pierce, 365; 
Hawaiian policy, 403. 

Maria, pirates capture, 56. 

Marshall, John, constitutional au- 
thority, 2; commissioner to France, 
131, 132; secretary of state, 138; 
court decisions, 237. 

Martinique, trade, 108, 134. 



Mason, G. T., Virginia senator, 120. 

Mason, J. M., Confederate com- 
missioner, 311; captured, 316; 
released, 318. 

Mason, J. Y., minister to France, 
301; special Spanish mission, 301. 

Massachusetts, limits curtailed, 46; 
interest in fisheries, 48; merchant 
marine, 163; whigs control, 227; 
boundary dispute, 230, 235. 

Mataafa, Samoan leader, 400, 401. 

Matamoras (Mex.), port, 308, 309. 

Maumee River, British fort on, 83, 
84, 116, 500. 

Maurepas, Comte de, French prime 
minister, 25. 

Maximilian, Archduke, Mexican em- 
peror, 330, 331; United States 
policy toward, 332, 442; death, 
333, 427. 

Meade, Gen. George, in Civil War, 
322. 

Mecklenburg-Schwerin, commercial 
treaty with, 285. 

Mediation, offered, in American 
Revolution, 41; in War of 1812, 
178; Spanish-American, 208, 324; 
French claims dispute, 228; Civil 
War, 330; Cuban insurrections, 
366, 412; Hayti-Dominican dis- 
pute, 384, 390; European, in 
American disputes, 384-386, 444; 
offered by A. B. C. powers, 490. 

Mediterranean Sea, piracy on, 55, 
56; abolished, 196; commerce, 85, 
141, 159. 

Merchant marine, development, 85- 
87, 109, 110, 152-154, 157, 163, 
169, 190, 284; risks, 154, 156, 161, 
164, 177; reciprocity aids, 196, 
197; subsidies, 284, 469; regis- 
tration rules, 470, 494; in Civil 
War, 309, 312; decline after war, 
336, 337, 353, 359, 469, 492. 

Merrimac, Monitor defeats, 319. 

Merritt, Gen. Wesley, advises peace 
commission (1898), 419. 

Merry, Anthony, British minister, 
147. 

Mexico, as boundary, 12; mines, 74, 
75, 89, 123; revolts from Spain, 
203; independence, 213; France 
desires, 205; Napoleon's views on, 
209; Russian relations, 213; seeks 



526 



INDEX 



alliances, 214; English relations, 
90, 215, 216, 253, 270, 271. 275, 

276, 278, 328, 329; plans of Con- 
gress, 216, 276; land policy, 246; 
commercial treaties, 216, 223, 
224, 279; slavery in, 246, 247; dip- 
lomatic service to, 221, 258, 273; 
claims trciity, 226, 375; report to 
Congress of, cited, 243; American 
interests in, 245, 248, 297, 452, 
481; defers payment, 328; Texjis 
question, 248-254, 260, 263, 265, 
271-276; California, 257-259, 274, 
275, 279; war with United States, 

277, 278; terms of peace, 279; 
Gadsden treaty, 290; Yucatan 
revolt, 296; revolution chronic, 
297, 328, 481; trade with Con- 
federacy, 309; relations with 
Second Empire, 328-333; dis- 
courages American settlers, 247; 
Spanish relations, 328, 329; allies 
colled duties in, 329; Empire 
founded, 320; arbitration of claims, 
350, 474; naturalization treaty, 
356; arbitration, 475, 481; bound- 
ary dispute, 385, 386; minister, 
cited, 387; favors arbitration 
court, 451; relations with United 
States 1915, 444, 479, 481; foreign 
interests in, 481, 486; American, 
482, 485-487; Madcro govern- 
ment, 482; Huerta, 483, 484, 486, 

Mexico, City of, Americans take, 
277; French, 329; Second Pan- 
American Congress, 451; foreign 
colony in, 482. 

Mexico, Gulf of, tributaries, 32, 187; 
commerce on, 33; control of, 253, 
360, 444. 

Mirhaux, Andre, French agent, 102. 

Michilimackinac (Mich.), British 
fort, 63; trade-centre, 173. 

Michigan, Ltike, right of navigation, 
285, 346. 

Middle West, demands open Mis- 
sissippi, 5. 

Midway Islands, annexation, 399, 
406, 425. 

Milan decree, terms, 158; revoked, 
168. 

Military service, liability of natural- 
ized citizens, 357. 

Milk Iliver, source, 195. 



Mines, Mexican, 74, 75, 89, 90, 123; 
foreign interests in, 481, 482; 
nitrate, 386. 

Mirabeau, Corate de, defeat in 
Assembly, 92. 

Miranda, Francisco de, adventurer, 
89; revolutionary plans, 90, 96, 
134, 135, 139, 203, 290; death, 
203. 

Miro, Estevern, Louisiana governor, 
75; intrigues, 70, 77; cited, 76. 

Mirs Bay, port leased, 455. 

Missionaries, American, in Oregon, 
255, 256; in Pacific, 396; China, 
286, 455, 460; Hawaii, 402; 
Turkey, 465; desire Philippines as 
field, 421. 

Mississippi River, as boundary, 19, 
40, 4 1 , 46, 74, 1 35, 1 5 1 , 20 1 ; source, 
116, 118; Spain holds, 5, 32, 33, 
63, 70, 75, 87, 90; French hold 
mouth, 16; Americans, 181; free 
navigation demanded, 41, 43, 48, 
57, 70, 72, 97, 197, 245; opposed 
by East, 71; granted, 124, 125, 
147; English demand, 182, 185, 
195; French designs in valley, 142; 
America secures, 194; fur-trade 
on upper, 173; outlet for commerce 
of, 360, 444. 

Missouri, Spanish intrigues in, 75; 
slavery struggle in, 252; emigrants, 
257; senator, 255. 

Missouri River, as boundary, 148; 
source, 195; fur-trade on, 173. 

Mobile (Ala.), French colony, 19, 
149; Americans occupy, 151; 
British threaten, 181. 

Mohammedans, plunder Spanish 
colonies, 13. 

Mohonk, Lake, conferences at, 473. 

Molasses, trade in, 119. 

Mongolia, independence recognized, 
459. 

Monitor, defeats Merrimac, 319. 

Monongahela River, joins Allegheny, 
17. 

Monnx', James, minister to France, 
104; welcome, 107, 115, 126; mis- 
sion, 127; recall, 128; indiscretion, 
128, 129, 131, 132; p(K)r diplomat, 
141, 188; Louisiana purchase, 144- 
146, 149, 150; minister to Eng- 
land, 158, 372; special mission, 158; 



INDEX 



527 



secretary of state, 170, 188; in- 
structs peace commissioners, 182; 
president, 188; Spanish-American 
policy, 201, 210, 211, 251; Oregon, 
255; states "doctrine," 211, 212, 
324. 
Monroe Doctrine, development, 1, 
2; basis, 211; stated, 212, 213; 
Canning's opinion of, 214, 215, 
382; influence on. national policy, 

217, 218, 353, 359; extensions of, 

218, 296, 334, 403, 417, 420, 448, 
450, 477-479, 484, 499, 500; real 
author, 218; Polk revives, 268, 
281, 325; Polk's corollary, 296; 
effect of Clayton-Bulwer treaty, 
293, 382; practiced effects, 324, 
326; during Civil War, 324-334; 
in Maximilian affairs, 333; Grant's 
corollary, 334; base of Panama 
policy (ISSO), 380; Blaine and 
Olney's conception of, 384-395; 
affects Caribbean situation, 444, 
450, 477; question of claims, 446, 
448; Roosevelt's corollary, 448; 
Lodge's corollary, 450; Wilson's 
corollaries, 450, 478, 484; Spanish- 
America resents, 452; Mexican 
problems, 482. 

Monterey (Cal.), American consul, 
instructions, 274; British consul, 
257; Americans seize, 258. 

Montevideo, French relations, 
325. 

Montreal, trade centre, 67, 118, 122, 
125, 173, 197; Americans desire, 
174. 

Moore, J. B., Spanish treaty com- 
mission secretary, 418; state de- 
partment counsellor, 480, 499. 

Moose Island, British demand, 182, 
186. 

Morgan, Col. George, Western 
schemes, 75. 

Morgan, J. P., interests in Honduras, 
459. 

Mori Daizen, chastised by Europe, 
353. 

Mormons, American, in Mexico, 
482. 

Morny, Due de, Mexican policy, 
329. 

Morocco, official piracy, 55; treaty 
with, 56, 85; international agree- 



ment with, 402; Algeciras con- 
ference, 402, 464. 

Morris, Gouverneur, mission to 
England, 87; minister to France, 
104; recall, 104. 

Morton, L. P., diplomatic expe- 
rience, 304. 

Mosquitoes (Indian tribe), 292, 295, 
383. See Nicaragua. 

Motley, J. L., minister to England, 
343, 373; instructions, 344; re- 
moval, 344; to Austria, 333; con- 
cludes treaty with England, 
356. 

Moultrie, Gov. William, receives 
Genet, 98. 

Mount Vernon, Washington at, 
120. 

Munster, treaty of, 14. 

Murray, W. V., minister to Holland, 
136; on French commission, 
137. 

Muscat, commercial treaty with, 
223. 



N 

Nacodoches, Spanish fort, 202; 
Americans occupy, 250. 

Najato, prince of, 353. 

Naples, interest in American Revo- 
lution, 24; American trade, 55, 164, 
167; insurrection in, 204; com- 
mercial treaty, 223; claims treaty, 
226; extradition, 285. 

Nashville (Tenn.), pioneers, 69. 

Nassau, port of, 238, 308. 

Natchez (Miss.), possession dis- 
puted, 33, 71; American interests, 
245; trade centre, 70; command- 
ant, 76. 

Natchitoches, French fort, 202. 

National Era, Mexican policy, 278. 

National Gazette, policy, 103. 

Naturalization. See International 
Law. 

Navarro, Martin, Spanish intendant, 
cited, 73, 74. 

Navigation. See International Law. 

Navy, in War of 1812, 178; in Civil 
War, 409; rebuilding, 409. 

Navy, steady increase in, 423; 
efficiency tested, 424; rank, 424; 
increase refused, 495. 



528 



INDEX 



Navy Island, militia rendezvous, 
232. 

Necker, Jacques, French statesman, 
43. 

Nelson, Hugh, minister to Spain, 
209, 210; instructions, cited, 297. 

Nelson, Justice Samuel, on British 
Claims commission, 345. 

Nesselrode, Count Karl Robert, 
English sympathy, 169. 

Netherlands, King of, arbitrates, 
230, 235; interests in Asia, 353; 
diplomatic service to, 429; arbi- 
tration treaty, 475. See Holland. 

Neutrality, position of Holland 
(1688), 14, 22, (1776), 35, 36, 
(1779), 38; lax enforcement, 22; 
doctrine of armed, 37, 38; John 
Adams's views, 92; Jefferson's, 102, 
104; Washington's, 125; cabinet 
discusses, 99; proclamation issued, 
100, 105; law of 179i, 105; prob- 
lems (17S9-1S13), 6, 90-92,95, 100, 
107, 127-129, 136, 152, 169, 170;ob- 
ligations (1789-1813), 106, 118, 
169; rights (1789-1812), 14, 108, 
110-114, 118, 124, 126, 127, 156, 
159, 167, 170, 175; indemnity for 
violations, 118, 124; England pro- 
claims, 206; United States, 207; 
problems (1812-1829), 196, 207, 
208; Great Britain's interpretation 
lax, 336, 338; American ixcioilSSS, 
345; problems (1829-1872), 232, 
249-251, 288, 299, 327, 330, 332. 
339; obligations (1829-1872), 288. 
309, 339, 345; rights (1829-1872), 
288, 308, 309, 312, 342, 345, 390. 
493; in Franco-Prussian war, 350; 
of Isthmian routes, 352, 380; in 
Cuban insurrection, 365, 409, 412; 
in Boer war, 431 ; of China, in Rus- 
sian-Japanese war, 458; in Mex- 
ican revolutions, 483; in Euro- 
pean war, 491, 493-496. 

Neufville, Jean de, drafts treaty, 
36. 

Neuville, Baron Hyde de, minister 
to United States," 200, 201. 

New Brunswick, boundarv dispute, 
230, 235. 

New England, .settlement of, 13 
captures Canadian i)orts, 15 
fishing interests, 40. 41. 192, 377 



commercial, 71; embargo hurts, 
161; carrying trade, 55, 177. 

New England Society, of New York, 
address to, cited, 305. 

New Granada. See Colombia. 

New Hampshire, claims Vermont 
lands, 67. 

New Madrid (Mo.), proposed col- 
ony, 75. 

New Mexico, United States claims, 
274; obtains, 279, 341. 

New Orleans (La.), French settle, 
16; ceded to England, 19; trade 
centre, 70, 98; Americans desire, 
73; English designs against, 90; 
French, 102; place of deposit, 124, 
144, 145; Pitt's plan for, 135; 
Spanish intendant, 144; ceded to 
United States, 146; Pakenham's 
expedition against, 181, 184; 
filibustering expeditions from, 298; 
Italian lynched at, 427. 

New York, Indian tribes, 64; claims 
Vermont lands, 67; Canada de- 
sires northern, 181; Canadian 
trade, 197; mihtia equip in. 
232. 

New York City, Indian chiefs visit, 
83; British \agent at, 90; trade 
centre, 161, 173, 199, 285, 427, 
452, 467; filibustering expeditions, 
298; Russian fleet visits, 359; Cu- 
ban head-quarters, 409. 

Newfoundland, ceded to England, 
16; fisheries, 40, 41, 45, 48, 108, 
192, 285, 434. 435, 497; embargo 
hurts, 161; War of 1812, 177; not 
a part of Canada, 434. 

Niagara (N. Y.), fort, 63, 182; media- 
tion conference at, 490. 

Niagara River, Iroquois on, 65; in- 
ternational waterway, 181; Fe- 
nians cross, 338. 

Nicaragua, international route, 135. 
290; rival of Panama, 291, 292. 

295, 440; Indians, 292; British 
relations, 292, 383; American. 

296, 297; extradition treaty with. 
350; right of way through, 352; 
proposed canal treaty, 382. 383; 
reciprocity with, 389; canal pol- 
icy, 439; protectorate over, 448; 
forcible intervention, 449; treaty 
(1915), 450. 



INDEX 



529 



Nicholas II of Russia, calls first 
Hague Conference, 473. 

Ningpo, port opened, 223. 

Nipissing, Lake, as boundary, 20, 
40, 46. 

Nitrate mines. South American, 386. 

Non-importation, colonial agree- 
ments, 156; law of 1S06, 157. 

Non-intercourse act, terms, 163; 
effects, 164, 166, 167; renewed, 
169. 

Nootka Sound, English settlement, 
88; Spanish ships raid, 88; con- 
troversy over, 89-92; neutrality 
difficult, 100; Treaty of, 92. 

North, Lord, resigns, 42; return to 
office, 59. 

North Carolina, settles Tennessee, 
69; Indian relations, 72; governor, 
137. 

Northcote, Sir Stafford, in claims 
commission, 345. 

North German Union, naturaliza- 
tion treaty, 355. 

Northwest, British policy in, 68, 116, 
172; Indian tribes, 172; north- 
west coast, Russian advance, 205, 
206, 209, 212. 

Northwest Territory, governor, 83. 

Northwestern Fur Co., rival, 173; 
title to Astoria, 185; absorbed, 
185. 

Norway, commercial treaty with, 
197; extradition, 285; natural- 
ization, 356; arbitration, 475; 
neutrality (1915), 492. 

Nova Scotia, desired by United 
States, 40. 

Nueces River, as boundary, 271. 

O 

Ohio, Indian tribes, 65, 84. 

Ohio River, claims to valley, 16, 17; 
ceded to England, 19; as bound- 
ary, 20, 40, 116; branches, 68; 
junction, 105; pioneers in valley, 
245. 

Oil, trade in, 164, 285; free entry 
conceded, 346. 

Oldenburg, commercial treaty with, 
285. 

Olliwochica, Indian leader, 172. 

Olney, Richard, secretary of state. 



8, 391, 392; Venezuela policy, 391; 
conception of Monroe Doctrine, 
392-395, 478; characterized, 391, 
395; cited, 392, 395. 

Onis, Don Luis de, negotiates with 
Adams, 200, 201, 246. 

Ontario, loyalists settle in, 66; re- 
lations with England, 178. 

Ontario, Lake, as boundary, 46; 
naval fights in, 178, 190. 

Orange Free State, treaty with, 350. 

Oregon, American claims, 93, 148, 
186, 195, 202, 214, 245, 205, 267, 
269, 278; joint occupation, 195, 
254-257, 269, 271; treaty signed, 
270; fur-trade in, 255; mission- 
aries, 255, 256; rush of settlers, 
257, 291; importance of coast line, 
398; attitude toward Mexico 
(1915), 486. 

Orinoco River, Spanish on, 391; 
Venezuelan control of, 394. 

Ostend Manifesto, terms cited, 
301. 

Oswald, Richard, British minister 
to France, 42, 43; new commis- 
sion, 45. 

Oswego (N. Y.), British fort, 63. 

Ottoman Empire, commercial treaty 
with, 223; in Crimean war, 288; 
diplomatic service to, 430; extra- 
dition treaty, 350; relations with 
United States, 464-466; war 
policies (1915), 492. 



Pacific Ocean, commerce, 92, 93; 
international co-operation on, 353, 
354, 369; interpretation of term, 
379; growth of American influence, 
396, 402, 463; territorial expansion 
on, 398, 454; islands acquired, 
398, 399, 404, 418, 425. 

Padillo, Panama gunboat, 441. 

Pagopago, naval station, 400, 425. 

Paine, Thomas, French sympathy, 
96. 

Pakenham, Sir Richard, British 
minister, 262; correspondence 
with, 263, 267. 

Pakenham, Gen. Sir Edward M., 
New Orleans expedition, 181. 

Palmerston, Lord, Central Amer- 



530 



INDEX 



ican policy, 294; Civil War, 313, 
317, 319; cited, 317. 

Panama, international route, 135, 
286, 290; Spanish- American con- 
gress, 214, 291 ; United States dele- 
gates, 216; American interests in, 
245; neutrality guaranteed (treaty 
of 18i6), 291, 385, 442; Nicaragua 
a rival, 291, 439, 440; railroad 
built, 295; de Lesseps canal, 380; 
title bought by United States, 439; 
relations with Colombia, 439- 
442, 453; United States recognizes, 
442; guarantees independence, 
443; constitution, cited, 443; re- 
lations with United States, 443. 

Panama Canal, fortifications, 436- 
438; tolls, 437, 480, 481; strategic 
importance, 444; opening, 469. 

Panama City, revolt in, 441. 

Pan-American Congress, success of 
first, 388; Hawaii not included, 
403; sessions, 451. 

Pan-American Exposition, at Buf- 
falo, 451. 

Pan-American Union, director-gen- 
eral, 430. 

Pan-Americanism, policy of Adams 
and Clay, 214; of Blaine, 386; 
action of Congress, 387; later, 
451. 

Panton, Leslie & Co., Indian trade, 
73. 

Papacy, relations with United States, 
51, 55. 

Papal bulls, confirm Spanish claims, 
10; importance, 10, 11. 

Papal States, diplomatic service to, 
280; plan to defend, 338. 

Paraguay, commercial treaty with, 
285, 287; arbitration, 475. 

Parana River, navigation of, opened, 
287. 

Paredes y A., Gen. M., Mexican 
president, policv. 275, 276. 

Paris, 73, 81, 138, 150, 204, 311, 418; 
interest in American Revolution, 
24; American representatives in, 
27, 28, 33, 96, 99, 104, 132, 145, 
188, 345; international bureau, 
weights and measures, .351; seal 
fisheries arbitration court, 379; 
Venezuelan, 394; engineering con- 
gress, 380; financial centre, 427. 



Paris, treaty of (1781-3), 18; discus- 
sion of terms, 40-50, 66; Indians 
angry at, 65; interpretation, 67,70, 
115, 117, 139, 186, 192, 194, 195; 
(1898), 418-422. 

Parker, Josiah, V^irginia Member of 
Congress, 121. 

Parliament, toleration of Lord Shel- 
burne, 59; passes navigation act; 
(1788), 60. 

Parrott, W. S., United States agent 
in Mexico, 273. 

Passamaquoddy Bay, islands, 186. 

Patriotism, demonstrations of, cul- 
tivated, 408. 

Pauncefote, Sir Julian, discusses 
Venezuelan dispute, 393; friendly 
to America, 431; Hay treaty, 436. 

Peace movement, growth of, 472, 
473, 496. 

Pearl Harbor, coaling station, 404. 

Pearl River, as boundary, 151. 

Pearson syndicate, Colombian plans, 
450. 

Peel, Sir Robert, American policy, 
233, 269, 270. 

Peking, foreign embassies besieged, 
455, 456; relieved, 457. 

Pensacoia (Fla.), Spanish colony, 
19; trading-post, 73; Jackson 
seizes, 200, 201. 

Perceval, Spencer, issues order in 
council, 159. 

Perdido River, as boundary, 19, 
149-159. 

Perignon, Gen. Marquis de, minister 
to Spain, 130. 

Perry, Commodore Matthew, Jap- 
an treaty, 286. 

Persia, commercial treaty with, 285. 

Peru, mines, 75; revolution in, 203; 
commercial treaty with, 223, 285; 
claims, 226; war with Spain, 327; 
arbitration of claims, 350; Ho- 
livia-Chili war, 386; arbitration 
treaty, 475; new government rec- 
ognized, 479. 

Peterhof, admiralty case, 309. 

Petroleum, supersedes whale-oil, 353. 

Pharmacopoeal Formulas for Po- 
tent Drugs, agreement to unify, 
472. 

Phelps, E. J., on seal-fisheries com- 
mission, 379. 



INDEX 



531 



Philadelphia, seat of Continental 
Congress. 23, 24, 33, 45, 70, 75; 
frivolity of, 39; port, 70, 76, 87, 
103; trade centre, 161; GenSt at, 
99, 101. 

Philip II, of Spain, succeeds to 
throne, 12. 

Philippines, ownership, 12; relations 
with United States, 245; reciproc- 
ity with, 389; early history, 417; 
negotiations for, 418; American 
sentiment concerning, 420, 421, 
476, 487; army of occupation, 
423; Japanese relations, 461. 

Pickering, Timothy, secretary of 
state, 121, 135, 288; maritime law 
policy, 129; English sympathies, 
121, 137; successor, 138; cited, 
129, 176. 

Pierce, Franklin, president, 281; 
first message, 281; expansionist, 
282; appointments, 282, 292, 300, 
365; Cuban policy, 300; cited, 300. 

Pike, Capt. Zebulon, explorer, 148. 

Pinchon, L. A., French minister, 
144. 

Pinckney, Charles, minister to Spain, 
140. 

Pinckney, C. C, minister to France, 
128; not received, 129-131; one of 
commission, 131, 137; reply to 
Talleyrand, 132; cited, 137. 

Pinckney, Thomas, minister to 
England, 87, 123; envoy to Spain, 
123; concludes treaty, 124; re- 
placed, 129. 

Pinkney, William, mission to Eng- 
land, 158, 372; tact, 165; recall, 
169. 

Piracy, menace to colonies, 13; of 
Barbary States, 55, 114, 132; 
slave-trade question, 237. 

Pitt, William, Earl of Chatham, 
friend of colonies, 17, 25; trade 
policy, 110. 

Pitt, William, premier, 60, 88, 89; 
fears frontier clash, 116; French 
policy, 132; Louisiana, 134. 

Pius IX, assumes pontificate, 280. 

Piatt Amendment, terms, 425, 426; 
enforced, 449. 

Plattsburg, battle of, 181. 

Poinsett, Joel, mission to Buenos 
Ayres, 206, 



Poles, treatment by Russia, 359. 

Polk, James K., elected president, 
265; appointments, 273, 282; 
Texas policy, 266, 267, 278, 440; 
Oregon, 267-271, 393; Mexican, 
271-279, 341; California, 267, 274, 
277; extends Monroe Doctrine, 
296, 325, 478; characterized, 267. 
279; cited, 276, 277. 

Polly, admiralty case, 156. 

Pompey the Great, destroys pirates, 
56. 

Pontiac, conspiracy of, 65. 

Poor Richard's Almanac, author, 27. 

Porcupine River, navigation free, 
346. 

Porfirio Diaz (Mex.), fighting at, 
482. 

Pork, trade in, 58, 76, 110, 467; in 
McKinley tariff, 388. 

Port Arthur, leased to Russia, 455. 

Port Royal. See Louisburg. 

Porter, Admiral David, annexes 
Madison island, 398. 

Porter, Admiral David D., inspec- 
tion cruise, 361. 

Porto Bello, Panama town, 441. 

Porto Rico, ownership, 35, 135, 203; 
effort to free, 217; slavery in, 236; 
reciprocity with, 389; United 
States acquires, 421; strategic im- 
portance, 444; change of owners, 
478, 487. 

Portugal, colonial relations with 
Spain, 11, 12; United States trade 
with, 56, 57, 163; diplomatic ser- 
vice to, 81, 140, 430; guards Gib- 
raltar, 114; loses Brazil, 203; 
commercial treaty, 223, 471; 
claims, 226; forbids slave-trade, 
236; war with Brazil, 324; pays 
American claims, 375; arbitra- 
tion treaty, 475. 

President, fights Little Belt, 174. 

Press, influence in causing Spanish 
war, 411. 

Pribilof Islands, sealing industry, 
377, 379, 434. 

Prim, Juan, Count de Reus, Mex- 
ican expedition, 329; Cuban pol- 
icy, 366. 

Privateering. See International Law. 

Privateers, French, 15, 98, 102, 103; 
American, 29; in war with France, 



532 



INDEX 



133; of 1812, 177; Spanish-Amer- 
ican, iOO, 207; Confederacy, 309, 
312, 315. 

Prizes. See International Law. 

Proctor, Sen. Redfield, report on 
Cuba, 412. 

Provisions, contraband, 111, 119- 
121, 124, 128, 154, 164, 493; com- 
petition in trade, 373. 

Prussia, American commissioner to, 
31; commercial treaties with, 53, 
54, 129, 197; privateering pro- 
hibited, 54; diplomatic service to, 
81, 140, 188; war with France, 95; 
war debt, 167; signs Holy Alli- 
ance, 204; head of Zollverein, 224; 
England seeks alliance with, 240; 
Cuban relations, 366. 

Puget Sound, ownership, 267, 270; 
coast importance, 398. 

Q 

Quebec, province created, 20; bound- 
aries, 33, 40, 46, 228. 

Quebec Act, provisions, 20. 

Quebec, City of, French stronghold, 
13, 16; Americans besiege, 75; 
trade centre, 118, 125, 197; route 
via, 182, 230. 

Quitman, Gen. J. A., Cuban filibus- 
tering, 298; Member of Congress, 
300. 



R 

Railroads. See Transportation. 

Rambouillet, decree of, 167, 168. 

Randolph, Edmund, secretary of 
state, 104; indiscretion, 120, 121; 
Vindication, 120. 

Randolph, John, opinion of non- 
importation, cited, 157; minister 
to Russia, 221. 

Rayneval, Gerard, secretary to 
Vergennes, 33; mission to Eng- 
land, 44. 

Reciprocity, {1815-1829). 196-199; 
(1830-1860), treaties, 223-225, 
285, 337, 346, 352, 376, 389, 403. 
404; "most favored nation" dis- 
pute, 224; policy of Hlaine. 373, 
388; endorsed by Pan-.\mcrican 
Congress, 388; with Canada, 432, 



435, 436; under Dingley tariflf, 
470; Payne-Aldrich, 471; Under- 
wood, 471. 

Reed, T. B., opposes Spanish war, 
413. 

Reid, Whitelaw, Spanish treaty 
commissioner, 418; ambassador 
to England, 430. 

"Restook," 230. 

Review of Reviews, editor, 440, 450. 

Rhett, R. B., Southern leader, 310. 

Rhode Island, France said to desire, 
78. 

Rice, trade in, 55, 57, 225. 

Richelieu River, trade route, 67. 

Richmond (Va.), Confederate cap- 
ital, 320. 

Riga, port open, 163. 

Right of search. See International 
Law. 

Rio Grande, boundary, 148, 201, 
246, 277, 279; source, 272, 274; 
as American troops on, 273, 276; 
navigation of, 481. 

Rio Janeiro, Pan-American Con- 
gress, 451. 

Rios, Don E. M., Spanish treaty 
commissioner, 418. 

Roberts College, protected by Tur- 
key, 465. 

Robertson, James, intrigues with 
Spain, 77. 

Robespierre, M. M. I., French 
leader, 103. 

Rochambeau, Comte de, statue of, 
presented, 467. 

Rockhill, W. W., commissioner to 
China, report cited, 457. 

Rockingham, Marquis of, favors 
peace, 42; death, 45. 

Rocky Mountains, as boundary, 
194, 271. 

Rodney, Adm. G. B., seizes St. 
Eustatius, 38. 

Roebuck, J. A., member of Parlia- 
ment, 320, 322, 331. 

Roman Catholic Church, aids Spain, 
15; first American bishop, 51, .'52; 
political sympathies, 207; mis- 
sions in Oregon, 256; Far East, 
455. 

Romanzoff, Count, French sympa- 
thy, 169. 

Rome, diplomatic centre, 10. 



INDEX 



533 



Romero, Senor Matias, Mexican 
minister, cited, 387. 

Roosevelt, Alice, christens German 
yacht, 467. 

Roosevelt, Theodore, voices impe- 
rialist spirit, 423; navy policy, 
424; relations with Hay, 429; civil 
service under, 431 ; Panama policy, 
439-443; doctrine of police power, 
447-450, 452; Santo Domingo in- 
tervention, 448; Spanish-American 
fears, 452; South American trip, 
453; mediator, 458; arbitration 
attitude, 473-475; foreign policy, 
476, 484; cited, 440, 441, 451. 

Root, Elihu, secretary of state, on 
Alaska boundary commission, 434; 
visits South America, 452; Japa- 
nese policy, 461, 462; arbitration 
advocate, 473, 475; ability, 429. 

Rose, John, English diplomat, 344. 

Roumania, relations with United 
States, 468. 

Rouse's Point, in dispute, 231. 

Rousseau, J. J., influence in Amer- 
ica, 24. 

"Rule of 1756." See International 
Law. 

Rush, Richard, minister to England, 
189, 191, 210, 237, 372; instruc- 
tions cited, 210. 

Russell, Lord John, foreign secre- 
tary, 8, 313, 322, 323, 340; Civil 
War papers, 317, 320. 

Russell, Jonathan, legation secre- 
tary, 170; peace commissioner, 
180, 185. 

Russell, William, Times correspond- 
ent, cited, 310. 

Russia, international relations, 37, 
178, 179, 209, 213, 240, 313, 331, 
357, 359, 379, 432; ofiFers media- 
tion, 41, 178, 179; American trade, 
53, 163, 169; diplomatic service 
to, 81, 163, 221, 430; dealings 
with Miranda, 89; British treaty, 
111; French invasion, 155, 170, 
178; arbitrator, 191, signs Holy 
Alliance, 204; policy in northwest, 
205, 206, 209, 211-214, 218, 254, 
281; Crimean war, 288; neutrality 
treaty, 288; Civil War policy, 
313, 359, 360; frees serfs, 313; 
Alaska treaty. 358, 359; treat- 



ment of Jews, 357, 466; Poles, 359; 
treaty with England, 432; seal 
fisheries treaty, 434; policy in 
Far East, 454, 455, 458, 459; Con- 
gress abrogates treaty with, 428, 
466; war with Japan, 458, 462. 

Russian American Company, com- 
pensation, 358. 

Ryswick, Treaty of, 16. 



Sabine River, as boundary, 201, 202, 
246. 

Sackett's harbor, British demand, 
182. 

Sagasta, P. M., Spanish prime min- 
ister, 413, 416. 

St. Augustine (Fla.), French designs 
on, 99. 

St. Bartholomew Island, ownership, 
35; ceded to France, 335. 

St. Clair, Gov. Arthur, Indians de- 
feat, 83, 116. 

St. Croix Island, ownership, 35. 

St. Croix River, as boundary, 46, 117, 
186; source, 228; command of, 182. 

St. Eustatius Island, entrep6t, 35; 
governor, 36; British seize, 38. 

St. Germain, treaty of, 13. 

St. John Island, cession proposed, 
360. 

St. John River (Florida), Huguenot 
massacre on, 13. 

St. John river (New Brunswick), 
as boundary, 40, 46; valley in dis- 
pute, 228; international waterway, 
235, 346. 

St. Joseph (Mich.), British fort 
burned, 33. 

St. Lawrence river, as boundary, 
20, 40, 46, 186, 228; British hold, 
63, 68, 87, 197; settlements in 
basin, 66, 67; opened to United 
States, 125; international water- 
way, 181; right of navigation, 
197, 285; granted. 346, 348; trib- 
utaries, 228. 

St. Louis (Mo.), trade-centre, 173, 

St. Marks (Fla.), Spanish fort, 200, 
201. 

St. Nicholas, port leased, 360. 

St Petersburg (Petrograd), American 
minister at, 170, 188, 455. 



534 



INDEX 



St. Thomas Island, cession proposed, 
360. 

Saligny, Alphonso de, French agent 
in Texas, 265. 

Salisburj', Lord, dealings with Amer- 
ica, 8; in scal-flsheries dispute, 
378, 379; in Clayton-Bulwer treaty 
dispute, 382; Venezuelan, 393; 
cited, 428. 

Samana Bav, desirable naval station, 
361, 363,'^401. 

Samoa, international interests in, 
399-401, 406, 425; American re- 
lations, 245, 399-401, 406, 425; in- 
dependence recognized, 401, 402; 
division of islands, 425, 454. 

San Francisco, Russian fleet visits, 
359; collector of port, 377; San 
Francisco, bay as boundary, 92; 
importance, 275, 398. 

San Jose (Costa Rica), arbitration 
court palace, 451. 

San Ildefonso, treaty of, 143. 

San Jacinto, battle of, 250. 

San Jacinto, stops Trent, 316. 

San Juan archipelago, ownership, 
337, 345, 347, 348. 

San Juan river, mouth of, 292, 383. 

San Marino, treaty with United 
States, 469. 

Sanmun, port leased, 455. 

San Salvador, commercial treaty 
with, 285; extradition, 350; arbi- 
tration, 475. 

Santa Anna, Gen. Antonio Lopez de, 
revolutionary leader, 247-249, 
251; exiled, 276; Polk's negotia- 
tions with, 276; intrigues, 277. 

Santa Fe, Texan expedition against, 
252; Mexican post, 272. 

Santiago of Chili, Pan-American 
Congress at, 451. 

Santo Domingo, divisions of, 326; 
trade, 108, 109, 134, 165, 166; 
leader, 134, 136; Lc Clerc's ex- 
pedition to, 143, 145; freedom, 
153. 

Sardinia, commercial treaty with, 
223; insurrection in, 204; in Cri- 
mean war, 288. 

Savov, Amadeo de, king of Spain, 
30.5. 

Saxony, desires commercial treaty, 
63. 



Scheldt River, commerce via, 5; 
navigation opened, 352. 

Schenck, R. C., minister to Eng- 
land, 344. 

Schenectady, burned, 15. 

Schofield, Gen. J. M., on Mexican 
duty, 332; mission to Napoleon, 
332. 

SchuTZ, Carl, diplomatic experience, 
304; minister to Spain, 327, 329; 
speech on expansion, 364; Phil- 
ippine views, 420; cited, 424. 

Scotch-Irish, in Kentucky, 69. 

Scott, Sir Walter, cited, 239. 

Scott, Sir William, admiralty deci- 
sions, 156, 236, 308. 

Scott, Gen. Winfield, on North- 
eastern frontier, 230. 

Seabury, Samuel, consecration as 
bishop, 52. 

Seals, fisheries problem, 377, 432, 
434, 497. 

Sectionalism, influences diplomacy, 
71, 282. 

Senate, relation to diplomacy, 80; 
acts on Jay treaty, 119; members, 
174, 222, 225, 364, 428; relation 
to House, 225, 428; to executive, 
428; acts on Zollverein treaty, 
225; Oregon, 270; San Domingo, 
363; Canadian reciprocity, 376, 
378, 435; Algeciras " General Act," 
464; Turkish atrocities, 465; ar- 
bitration, 474, 475; treaty making 
power, 471. 

Servia, treaty with, 375. 

Sevastopol, in Crimean War, 288. 

Seven Years' War, trade during, 109. 

Servier, John, Tennessee leader, 69, 
77. 

Sewall, H. M., consul at Samoa, 
400. 

Seward, W. H., dealings with Eng- 
land, 241, 318, 319, 321, 339, 340, 
382; France. 331-333; Mexico, 
329; Spain, 326, 327; privateering 
policy, 309; slave-trade, 349; 
naturalization, 355; views on ex- 
pansion, 281, 305, 306, 326, 333, 
358-362, 403, 487; length of pub- 
lic service, 370, 499; indiscretion, 
305, 317, 342; characterized, 305, 
306; cited, 340, 355, 362, 382. 

Shanghai, port opened, 223. 



INDEX 



535 



Shaw, Albert, letter to, cited, 440; 
editorial, cited, 450. 

Shefl5eld, Lord, "Observations on 
the Commerce of the United 
States," influence, 59. 

Shelburne, Lord, liberal opinions, 
42, 60; controls ministry, 45; re- 
signs, 58; cited, 45. 

Shelby, Isaac, Kentucky governor, 
102; cited, 105. 

Shenandoah, Confederate cruiser, 
339. 

Sherman, John, secretary of state, 
414; Cuban policy, 412; successor, 
418; cited, 412. 

Shimonoseki, indemnity returned, 
397, 454. 

Shimonoseki Straits, closed, 353. 

Ship-building, American industry, 
58; government policy toward, 
85, 469, 470; growth, 109; de- 
cline, 336. 

Short, William, American minister to 
Spain, 123, 140. 

Siam, commercial treaty with, 223, 
286. 

Silks, trade in, 55, 284. 

Singleterry, John, arrested, 102. 

Sitka (Alaska), United States court 
at, 378. 

Slavery, Missouri question, 252; 
Texas, 253, 254, 262; in Cuba, 
298, 301, 302, 367; growth of 
opposition, 321, 354; Alex. H. 
Stephens views, 323. 

Slave trade, African, 55, 58; pro- 
hibited, 79; English opposition 
to, 191, 216, 236; European, 236; 
American, 236, 237; Mexican, 
246; suppression difficult, 236, 
238, 239, 241; declared piracy, 
237; legislation after 1862, 349, 
374. 

Slidell, John, minister to Mexico, 
273-275; Confederate commis- 
sioner, 311; captured, 316; re- 
leased, 318; agent in France, 331. 

Smiley, A. K., paciBst, 473. 

Smith, Adam, influences Lord Shel- 
burne, 58. 

Smith, Ashabel, Texas representa- 
tive, 264. 

Smith, J. F., on Chinese commis- 
sion, 398. 



Smith, Robert, secretary of state, 
163; successor, 170. 

Smuggling, by Dutch, 35, 36; be- 
tween England and France, 164. 

Society of Holy Trinity for Re- 
demption of Captives, activity, 
55, 56. 

Sorrel River, trade route, 67. 

Soudan, British withdrawal, 342. 

Soule, Pierre, minister to Spain, 
283, 300; independence in office, 
371. 

South, in diplomatic service, 304. 

South America, commerce, 5. 

South Sea Bubble, speculation, 
205. 

Southwest, character of settlers, 69; 
trade, 69; relations with Indians, 
83, 89. 

Spain, holds Mississippi River, 5; 
trouble with colonies, 6; papal 
aid, 10, 15; colonial relations 
with Portugal, 11, 12; extends 
empire, 12; pirates molest col- 
onies, 13; Armada defeated, 13; 
recognizes rival colonies, 14, 21; 
colonial commerce, 15; aids 
France, 18; cedes Florida, 19; ac- 
quires Louisiana, 19; neutrality 
lax, 22; aids American Revolution, 
26, 27, 108; offers mediation, 32; 
war with England, 32, 37; Am- 
erican commissioner to, 31, 32, 
34; American policy, 33, 91; 
seizes British forts in Florida, 33; 
Michigan, 34; neutral trade, 38; 
in American peace negotiations, 
43-45, 49, 50; gains Floridas, 50; 
payments to Barbary, 56; United 
States trade, 57, 63, 77, 163, 166, 
167, 177; controls Mississippi, 
69, 70, 71, 87, 147, 197; treaties 
with England, 70; Western in- 
trigues, 73-77, 123; Indian pol- 
icy, 73, 74, 83, 123; diplomatic 
service to, 81, 123, 209, 283, 300. 
301, 327, 366, 385, 412, 430; m 
Nootka Sound affair, 88-93; Fam- 
ily alliance, 88; effect of Jay 
treaty, 122; vacillation, 123; 
war with France, 95, 97, 99; 
treaty with United States, 124, 
134; international law position, 
124, 237; evacuates disputed 



536 



INDEX 



ports, 139, 142; cedes Louisiana, 
143, 147, 150; Bonaparte regime, 
150, 203; disputed boundary, 
199-202; cedes Floridas, 202, 
207; insurrection in, 204; mon- 
archy restored, 204; relations 
with Spanish-Americji, 203, 210- 
213, 251, 29C, 326-329, 361, 384, 
387, 391; claims trejity, 226, 
350, 375; forbids slave trade, 
236; gives up Oregon claim, 254; 
Cuban relations, 298, 326, 330, 
365-368; domestic situation, 365; 
emancipation policy, 367; in 
Virginius affair, 366, 367; reci- 
procity with, 389; commercial 
treaty, 471; war with America, 
409-417; peace terms, 418-421, 
487; Cuban debt problem, 418, 
426; arbitration with Mexico, 
474; United States, 475; inter- 
ests in Mexico, 482. 

Spanish-America, mines, 75; rev- 
olutionary leaders, 89, 96, 97, 203; 
discontent in, 135; European 
relations, 385; Burr's designs on, 
147; trade valuable, 155; revo- 
lutions, 203, 205, 226; United 
States trade with, 206; interest 
in, 7, 208, 209; relations with, 
210-219, 226, 284, 319, 384, 390, 
406, 442, 464, 484, 489, 490, 500; 
England's relations with, 206, 209- 
217, 319, 334; calls a congress, 
214; Pan- American attitude, 387, 
390, 451; foreign concessions in, 
450, 460; relations with Japan, 
461; joins in Sanitary Conven- 
tions, 472. 

Spooner, Sen. J. C, amends reci- 
procity treaties, 471. 

Spooner Act, provisions, 439. 

Springbok; admiralty case, 308. 

Stanley, Lord, foreign i)olicy, 340. 

Staples, loan to Mexico, 215. 

Steinbcrger, A. B., German agent, 
400. 

Stephens, A. IL, favors fleet, 311. 

Steuben, Baron Friedrich von, de- 
mands surrender of frontier posts, 
63. 

Stevens, Edward, American consul 
136. 

Stevens, J. L., minister to Hawaii, 



cited, 404; favors annexation, 405; 
recalled, 406. 

Stevenson, R. L., interest in Samoa, 
399. 

Stickine River, na\'igation free, 346. 

Stockton, Admiral R. F., sent to 
Monterey, 274. 

Stoeckl, Baron, Russian minister, 
sale of Alaska, 358. 

Straus, Oscar, minister to Turkey, 
430, 466; betters conditions, 466. 

Suarez, Pino, Mexican vice-presi- 
dent, killed, 483. 

Suez Canal, director of, 380. 

Sugar, trade in, 108, 109, 119, 153; 
Hawaiian, 353; in McKinley 
tariff, 388. 

Sullivan, Gen. John, expedition 
against Iroquois, 64. 

Sumner, Charles, senator, 306, 339, 
340, 364; views in foreign policy, 
317, 340-344, 347; removed from 
chairmanship, 344, 364; works 
for Alaska treaty, 358, 359; char- 
acterized, 306, '307, 342; cited, 
341. 

Superior, Lake, as boundary, 46. 

Supreme Court, powers over treat- 
ies, 80. 

Suwo, prince of, 353. 

Sweden, American colonists, 14; 
armed neutralitv, 37; treaties 
with, 54, 129, 197, 285, 356, 475; 
American minister to, 188; for- 
bids slave-trade, 236; cedes St. 
Bartholomew to France, 335; 
American cession refused, 362; 
neutrality (IDJo), 492. 

Switzerland, commercial treaty with, 
285; represented in Geneva board, 
347; diplomatic service to, 429, 
430; trade agreement with United 
States, 471; arbitration, 475; neu- 
trality problems {191')), 492. 

Syria, missions in, 465. 

Syrians, status in United States, 
466. 



Tackle, T.. British agent, cited, 82, 

181. 
Taft, W. H., president, 435; seal 

fisheries treaty, 434; reciprocity. 



INDEX 



537 



435; immigration policy, 468; 
Japan, 450; arbitration, 475; 
Mexican, 481, 482. 

Talien-wan, port leased, 455. 

Talleyrand, C. M. de, American 
policy, 131-133, 136-138, 142, 
143; cited, 142, 143, 149, 150. 

Tallulah (La.), Italian lynched at, 
427. 

Tamasese, King of Samoa, 400. 

Tar, trade in, 57. 

TarifiP, customs, 85; protects fish- 
eries, 193, 194; affects ship-build- 
ing, 336, 470; Morrill, 314; 
McKinley, 388; Wilson, 389; 
Dingley, 470, 471; Payne-Aldrich, 
471; Underwood, 471. 

Taylor, Zachary, Mexican cam- 
paigns, 273, 276; diplomatic serv- 
ice under, 304; instructions to, 
cited, 273; president, 304. 

Tea, commercial importance of, 54, 
55, 196, 199, 284. 

Tecumseh, forms confederacy, 172. 

Tehuantepec, Isthmus of, canal pro- 
posed, 216, 290, 295. 

Temple, Sir John, British consul- 
general, 87. 

Tennessee, offshoot of North Caro- 
lina, 69; Spanish intrigues, 77; 
admitted to Union, 82; French 
intrigues, 102, 105; English. 134; 
governors, 134, 248. 

Tepic (Cal.), British consul, 257. 

Texas, Spanish boundaries, 201, 
202; United States reversionary 
interest, 208, 209, 245, 246; claims 
treaty, 226: rush of settlers, 245, 
481; land titles, 245; "Fredonian 
republic," 247; joined to Coahuila, 
247; Mexican forts in, 247; Amer- 
ican leaders, 248; Indian negotia- 
tions, 248; declares independence, 
248; gained American aid, 249; 
annexation question, 250, 251- 
254, 259-266, 272, 274, 341; 
slavery, 253, 262-266, 298, 301; 
boundary, 271, 279; truce with 
Mexico, 273; United States gains, 
279; attitude toward Mexico 
(1915). 486. 

Texel, John Paul Jones at, 36. 

Thames, battle of, 178. 

Thiers, M. J. L. A., cited, 166. 



Thompson, Waddy, minister to Mex- 
ico, cited, 258, 274. 

Thornton, Sir Edward, British agent, 
144; on claims commission, 345. 

Tibet, relations to Great Britain, 
459. 

Tiger Island, naval station sought, 
382. 

Tippecanoe, battle of, 172. 

Tobacco, trade, 57, 76, 164, 225; 
Cuban plantations, 410. 

Tobago, France acquires, 50. 

Tordesillas, treaty of, 11, 13. 

Tower, Charlemagne, diplomatic 
service, 430. 

Trade-mark treaties, 351, 469. 

Trafalgar, battle at, 152. 

Transportation, ocean, 63, 70, 289, 
317; trans-continental railroads, 
289, 290, 352, 382, 437; canals, 
290-293, 295, 346, 380-383; Isth- 
mian railroad, 295, 303, 352. 

Transvaal, British withdrawal, 342. 

Treaties, arbitration, 474, 475, 481; 
claims, 226, 345, 375; commercial, 
14, 29, 39, 53, 54, 118, 119, 124, 
129, 197, 216, 223, 279, 285-287, 
352, 397; extradition, 350, 374; 
model, 474; naturalization, 355, 
356; reciprocity, 223-225, 285, 
337, 346, 352, 376, 389, 403, 404, 
470; seal fisheries, 434; trade- 
marks, 351, 374; of Aix-la-Cha- 
pelle, 16; Alaska Purchase, 358- 
361; Amiens, 143; Basle, 123, 130; 
Berlin, 465; Breda, 14; Clayton- 
Bulwer, terms, 293, 295, 334, 438; 
interpretation, 282, 293, 381-383; 
abrogated, 436; Family AlHance, 
18, 26, 32; Florida Purchase, 202; 
Gadsden Purchase, 290, 295; 
of Ghent, 2, 70; negotiated, 178- 
185, 235; terms, 185, 186, 190, 237; 
interpretation, 191; error in sur- 
vey, 231; Greenville, 84, 122; 
Guadaloupe Hidalgo, 277-279; 
Hay-Pauncefote, 436-438; Holy 
Alliance, 88, 123, 204; failures, 
208; manifesto, 209; Hopewell, 
83; Jay's, provisions, 117, 119, 173, 
192, 197, 235; adventures, 119- 
122; effects, 122, 123, 126, 127, 
130; neutral clause expires, 157; 
Louisiana Purchase, 146, 147; 



538 



INDEX 



Madrid, 14; Munster, 14; Nootka 
Sound, 92, 267; Oregon, 270; Paris 
(1763), 18, 19, 40-50, 77, 115; 
Paris (IS'JS), 426; Portsmouth, 
458; Quadruple Alliance, stops 
Barbary piracy, 196, 204; Spanish- 
American attitude, 212; Ryswick 
16; St. Germain, 13; San Ildefonso 
143, 149, 150; San Lorenzo, 124 
Tordesillas, 11, 13; Utrecht, 16 
Victoria, 12; Washington, 345 
352, 364, 375; Wayne's, 122, 182 
Webster-Ashburton, 234, 235, 269 
Westminster, 14; Zaragoza, 12. 
See names of countries. 

Trenf, affair of, 316-318. 

Trescott, W. H., South American 
mission, 386, 387; on Chinese 
commission, 398; ability, 401. 

Trevelyan, Sir G. O., upholds Amer- 
ican Revolution, 314. 

Tripoli, official piracy, 55. 

Trist, N. P., peace commissioner, 
277, 278. 

Troppau, meeting of allies, 204. 

Tuhl, Baron de, Russian minister, 
209. 

Tunis, oflBcial piracy, 55; treaty, 85. 

Turgot, A. R. J., attitude toward 
America, 25, 26; reputation, 43. 

Turk Island, reciprocity with, 470. 

Turner, Sen. George, in Alaskan 
boundary commission, 434. 

Turpentine, trade in, 58. 

Turreau, L. M., minister to United 
States, 166. 

Tuscany, American commissioner 
to, 31. 

Tutuila Island, naval station, 400; 
ceded to Unitetl States, 425. 

Tyler, John, president, 225; foreign 
policy, 225, 233, 239, 256; Texas, 
260, 264, 266; unpopularity, 225, 
264. 

Tweed, Boss, surrendered by Spain, 
351. 

Two Sicilies, commercial treaty 
with, 223; extradition, 285; neu- 
trality, 288. 

U 

United States, isolation policy, 1, 
2, 125, 134, 137, 139, 171, 187, 



190, 211, 212, 220, 324, 375, 407, 
438, 463, 477, 495; world-power, 
3, 4; problems of neutrality, 6, 
90-92, 100, 152, 154, 156, 169, 
170, 175, 207, 208, 232, 249-251, 
288, 330, 332, 339, 350, 352, 409, 
483; treaty with France, 29; seeks 
recognition by Spain, 32; England, 
44; in peace negotiations, 43-46; 
English trade, 57; foreign debt, 77; 
treaties with England, 70, 77; 
direction of foreign policy, 81; 
financial strength, 82; Indian pol- 
icy, 82-84, 172, 194, 245; rela- 
tions with Barbary States, 84, 85; 
in Nootka Sound affair, 90-93; 
French diplomacy in, 96; recog- 
nizes French republic, 101; recalls 
Morris, 104; neutral claims, 109, 
110, 113, 158, 288; England in- 
jures trade, 112; naturalization 
policy, 114, 289, 355-357; treaty 
with Spain, 124; resents British 
aggressions, 114, 158, 160, 166; 
passes embargo, 115; sends em- 
bassy, 115; compromises treaty 
difficulties, 117-119; friction with 
France, 128, 133, 136, 226-228; 
foreign intrigues in, 131; Conven- 
tion of 1800, 138, 143; buys Louisi- 
ana, 146; carrying trade, 156, 157, 
161, 167, 169, 196, 198, 222; in 
War of 1S12-H, 174-178; peace 
negotiations, 178-185; effect on 
neutral trade, 185; position in 
1815, 186; European prestige, 189; 
growth of navy, 189, 190, 424; 
in Florida dispute, 199-202; rec- 
ognizes de facto governments. 
212, 280; Spanish- American sym- 
pathy, 206, 207; problems, 210- 
219; trade, 223; slavery sentiment, 
217, 237; claims treaties, 226-228 
Northeastern boundary dispute, 
228-235; abolishes slave-trade, 
236; enforcement lax, 238, 247 
public land policy, 246; Texas 
sympathy, 248; recognition, 251 
annexation question, 253-254 
260-266, 271-276; Missouri ques 
tion, 252; Oregon, 255-2,57. 267, 
270, 271; California, 257-259, 274 
Mexican War sentiment, 277, 278 
increase of territory, 279; expan- 



INDEX 



539 



sion process, Mexican view, 243, 
244; historical, 244, 245; theory of, 
280, 281; sympathy with European 
revolutions, 280, 281; Isthmian 
policy, 290-295, 390, 406, 436- 
438, 450, 477, 481 ; Cuban, 299-302, 
365-368; Southern blockade, 307- 
312, 315; irritation at England, 
316, 322, 336, 337; Spanish-Amer- 
ican policy, 324, 327, 350, 385, 
489; dealings with Second Empire, 
in Mexico, 329-333; Irish immi- 
gration, 338; enlistments, 338; 
war claims against England, 339- 
348; seal-fisheries dispute, 378, 
379; interest in de Lesseps canal, 
380; interpretation of Clayton- 
Bulwer treaty, 381, 382; proposed 
Nicaragua canal treaty, 382; 
Venezuela dispute, 391-394; re- 
lations with China, 397, 398; 
Samoa, 399-401; Hawaii, 402- 
406, 424; isolation policy violated, 
402; in Spanish war, 409-417; 
peace terms, 418-422; changes in 
policy, 421, 422, 425; imperialist 
spirit in, 424; colonial policy, 425, 
443; Chinese immigration ques- 
tion, 397, 398, 432; Alaska bound- 
ary, 432, 434; fisheries, 435; Pan- 
ama treaty, 443; Santo Domingo 
protectorate, 448; intervention 
doctrine, 449; continental co- 
operation, 451; Spanish- American 
distrust of, 452, 489, 490, 500; in- 
terest in Far East, 455; Chinese 
policy, 456-462; relations with 
Japan, 461-463, 481; Africa, 464; 
Turkey, 464-466; Mexico, 481- 
490; international agreements, 
472; neutrality problems {1915), 
491, 493-496. 

United States, wins fight, 190. 

Upshur, A. P., secretary of state, 
220, 260, 262; killed, 260. 

Uruguay, European relations, 325. 

Uruguay River, navigation of, 
opened, 287. 

Utrecht, treaty of, 16. 



Valparaiso (Chili), killing of marines 
at. 390. 



Van Alen, J. J., appointment to 
Italy, criticized, 372. 

Van Berkel, E. T., Amsterdam bur- 
gomaster, 36. 

Van Bibber, Abraham, American 
agent, cited, 36. 

Van Buren, Martin, secretary of 
state, 2, 220, 222; president, 252; 
minister to England, 372; Texas 
policy, 252. 

Vancouver Island, English settle- 
ment, 88, 270; American claim, 
267, 271. 

Vanderbilt, Commodore Cornelius, 
promoter, 292, 337. 

Vaughan, Benjamin, secret mission, 
45; returns to France, 45; letter, 
cited, 59. 

Venezuela, revolution, 203; com- 
mercial treaty, 223; arbitration 
of claims, 350; convention with, 
375; French claims, 385; reciproc- 
ity afiFects, 389; British contro- 
versy, 391, 393, 394; American 
interests, 391, 393-395; inter- 
vention threatened, 449; inter- 
national blockade, 447. 

Venice, desires United States trade, 
55. 

Vera Cruz (Mex.), United States 
occupies, 489; leaves, 490. 

Vergennes, Count de, urges aid to 
America, 25; directs French pol- 
icy, 26, 28, 31, 33, 36, 39; subor- 
dinates, 96; in peace negotiations, 
43, 44, 46, 49, 61, 137; difficult 
position, 43; characterized, 43; 
cited, 25. 

Vermont, in Revolution, 67, 69; 
sends commissioners to Canada, 
67; British control possible, 68; 
not recognized by Congress, 67; 
admitted to Union, 82; trade 
agreements with England, 87, 118, 
122, 197. 

Verona, Congress of, 204; principles, 
cited, 204. 

Verrazano, Giovanni de, explorer, 
13. 

Vicksburg, moral effects of capture, 
322. 

Victor, Gen. C. P., on Louisiana ex- 
pedition, 143; instructions, 148, 
149. 201. 



540 



INDEX 



Victoria, Queen, appointments, 347. 

Victoria, treaty of, 12. 

Vienna, American commissioner to, 
31. 

Vienna, Congress of, 180; wrangles, 
184. 

Vienna, Decree of, 166, 167. 

Villa, Gen., revolutionary leader, 
486. 

Vincennes (Ind.), French settle, 16; 
Clark captures, 33, 69. 

Virginia, English colony, 13; in 
French and Indian war, 17; re- 
taliatory laws, 61; emigrants, 69; 
Kentucky part of, 76; convention 
of, 1788, 72; hurt by embargo, 
162. 

Virginius, affair of, 367, 368. 

"Visit and Search." See Interna- 
tional Law. 

Voltaire, F. M. A. de, cited, 17. 

W 

Wade, B. F., on San Domingo com- 
mission, 363. 

Wagram, battle of, effects, 166. 

Waite, M. R., on Geneva board, 347. 

Wake Island, United States occupies, 
425. 

Walker, William, Nicaragua in- 
trigues, 296, 297. 

Walpole, Lord, on maritime law, 
cited, 179. 

War of 1812, causes, 6, 175; effects, 2. 

War Hawks, beliefs, 171, 175. 

Ward, H. G., British minister, 247. 

Warville, Brissot de, American 
voyage, 96. 

Washburne, Elihu, secretary of state, 
365; minister to France, 365. 

Washington, George, president, 1 ; in 
French and Indian war, 17; sup- 
porters, 31; appointments, 80, 81, 
87, 104; foreign. 63, 91, 99-101, 
104, 123, 129, 188, 211; success of, 
124; Indian policy. 82, 83, 125, 173; 
task unfinished, 93, 125; accepts 
Bastile Key, 94; neutrality proc- 
lamation, 100; supplementary, 
105; receives Genfit, 101; press 
attacks, 103; disapproves Jay 
treaty, 120; signs, 120; contest 
with House, 121; farewell address. 



125, 438; commander-in-chief, 
135; formality of, 140; strength 
of character, 95, 125; cited 63, 123. 

Washington (D. C), 179, 191, 200, 
210, 227, 250, 256, 262, 294, 307, 
326, 344, 345, 358, 387, 400, 401, 
413, 441, 442; burned, 184; seat 
of government, 276; Bureau of 
American Republics at, 388. 

Wasp, wins fight, 190. 

Waterways, international, 5, 70, 

197, 287, 291, 346, 351. 
Wayne, Gen. Anthony, moves 

against Indians, 83, 116; defeats 
them, 84, 117; treaty, 122; Cum- 
berland manoeuvers, 105; on 
Maumee, 500. 

Webster, Daniel, oration for Greece, 
207; secretary of state, 222, 233; 
Ashburton treatv, 234, 237; Brit- 
ish policy, 234, 239-241, 294, 403; 
Oregon, 269; California, 274; 
Me-xico, 258, 260, 278; presiden- 
tial ambitions, 235; characterized, 
221; letters cited, 233, 252, 271, 
282. 

Weed, Thurlow, in England, 321; 
letter cited, 331. 

Weights and measures, joint bu- 
reau of, 351. 

Wei-hai-wei, port leased, 455. 

Welles, Gideon, blockade policy, 
307; confidence in navy, 319. 

Wellesley, Marquis of, minister of 
foreign affairs, 168. 

Wellington, Duke of, victory over 
French, 178; desires American 
peace, 180; American campaign 
proposed, 184; aids Spain, 205. 

West, development, 71; sectional- 
ism, 71, 72; discontent, 72, 77, 82, 
144, 172-175; foreign intrigues, 
72-77, 98, 102, 116, 131; loyalty, 
148, 152; in War of 1812, 178. 

West Indies, Spanish, 12; owner- 
ship, 25; diplomatic importance, 
20; England sends troops to, 49; 
Spanish claims relinquished, 418; 
British, 29; trade important to 
America, 58. 77, 161, 176, 193, 

198, 199; forbidden, 59-61, 87, 
153, 198, 199, 218; temporarily 
open, 122, 124; direct trade open, 
222; admiralty courts, 112, 114, 



INDEX 



541 



122; slave-trade forbidden. 238; 
slaves freed, 238; French, trade 
with America, 61, 134, 156, 158, 
165, 176, 308; with France, 108; 
with England, 156; guarantee, 99, 
101; ready for war, 102; need 
neutral trade, 106; England block- 
ades, 112. 

Westminster, Treaty of, 14. 

Weyler y Nicolau, Gen. Valeriano, 
Cuban campaign, 411. 

Whale oil, trade in, 61, 396; petro- 
leum supersedes, 353. 

Wharton, Francis, letter to, cited, 
261. 

Wheat. See Grain. 

Wheaton, Henry, diplomatic ability, 
221; German negotiations, 224, 
225; An Inquiry into the Va- 
lidity of the British Claim to a 
Right of Visitation and Search, 
cited, 240. 

Whiskey Rebellion, "confessions" 
of Randolph, 120. 

White, A. D., on San Domingo com- 
mission, 364. 

White, Henry, diplomatic promo- 
tion, 429. 

Wilkes, Capt. Charles, visits Oregon 
coast, 256; stops Trent, 316; 
exceeds powers, 318. 

Wilkinson, James, colonizing scheme, 
75; at siege of Quebec, 75; in- 
trigues with Spain, 76, 123, 136; 
Burr, 147; occupies Mobile, 151; 
Texas speculations, 245. 

Willamette River, American settlers 
on, 267. 

William HI, of England, 14, 36. 

Williams, G. H., on British claims 
commission, 345. 

Wilson, Woodrow, president, 430; 
diplomatic policy, 430; civil ser- 
vice, 431; canal tolls, 437, 481; 



European claims, 446; opposes for- 
eign " concessions," 450, 460, 480; 
Spanish-American attitude, 452; 
Chinese policy, 460; vetoes lit- 
eracy test, 468; merchant marine 
policy, 470; foreign, 476, 479, 480, 
489, 496; Japanese, 480; Mexican, 
484, 489; Philippine, 487. 

Wine, trade in, 223. 

Wisconsin, fur-trade, 173. 

Woodford, S. L., minister to Spain, 
412-415. 

Woods, Lake of, as boundary, 46, 
116, 186, 194, 235. 

Wordsworth, William, cited, 94. 

Wurttemburg, naturalization treaty 
with, 356. 

Wu Ting Fang, Chinese minister, 
460. 

Wyse, Capt, concession from Co- 
lombia, 379. 



X. Y. Z. correspondence, 133. 



Yangtse River valley, railroad, 459. 
Yazoo River, as boundary, 20, 48, 

70, 71, 139; settlements, 75; 

settlements planned, 75. 
York, Sir Joseph, British minister, 

38. 
Yorktown, British surrender, 22, 42. 
Yrujo, C. M., Spanish minister, 144. 
Yucatan, international relations, 

296, 478. 
Yukon River, navigation free, 346; 

gold discovered, 432. 



Zaragoza, treaty of, 12. 



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